Preston C. Tisdale, a partner at the Bridgeport-based law firm of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, has been named president-elect of the board of directors of the Public Justice Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
“It”™s an organization of lawyers and nonlawyers who are concerned about issues that public justice is concerned with,” said Tisdale. “We take on the biggest systemic threats to justice of our time: abusive corporate power, predatory practices, assaults on civil rights and liberties and destruction of the Earth”™s sustainability. We connect high-impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to fight these abusive and discriminatory systems.”
Tisdale will assume the board”™s presidency in July. He already has his priorities in place when the time comes for him to take on his new leadership role.
“We have a debtors prison project that we”™re working on,” he said. “We deal with diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility issues. We also we have a full project committee aspect, which deals with everything from Ag-Gag laws in states like North Carolina and in the Midwest, where they try to limit the ability of persons to come in and expose any sort of improper actions by the agricultural industry or where there”™s sewage waste, which is being dumped into communities. We also have a Student Civil Rights Project committee ”” they handled the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal.”
Tisdale pointed out an overlap between the Public Justice Foundation and his work at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, noting how his firm “has a long tradition of protecting civil rights and standing up for the well-being and protection of citizens.” He cited some of the firm”™s most prominent accomplishments, including the representation of families of the Sandy Hook massacre and in Bridgeport school desegregation cases as examples of its commitment to “bringing fair play and justice to those quarters where it”™s needed, and particularly those sectors of society where justice has often been denied.”
The Public Justice Foundation is one of many entities where Tisdale has given his time and attention. Among his other activities beyond his law firm, he serves as a member of the Connecticut Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparity in the Criminal Justice System and the Connecticut Bar Association Task Force on Policing, and he previously served as a faculty member of the National Defender Training Program and the Connecticut Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Program. He also serves on the board of governors of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice.
Outside of law, he is a past chairman of the Central Connecticut Coast YMCA and received that organization”™s H. Richard Brew Service Award earlier this year in tribute to his volunteer work. Tisdale said that his willingness to donate his time and energy to professional and community organizations was based on his upbringing.
“Both my mother and father were very active in the civil rights movement of the ”˜60s, and they instilled in me a strong commitment to giving back to the community,” he said. “The betterment of the community, the general good ”” that was a very strong component of my family”™s life and commitment. I consider myself to be continuing my family”™s commitment to the betterment of society.”
