Staff

Cathy Costanzo became the Executive Director of the Center for Public Representation in September 2011. She has worked in the mental disability law field since 1977 and has extensive experience in providing representation to institutionalized persons throughout the country and for litigating ADA/Olmstead cases. She is the former director of the Massachusetts PAIMI Project and the former chair of National Disability Rights Network’s Legal Committee. Ms. Costanzo is co-counsel in a number of class action cases in New Mexico, Massachusetts, Oregon and Ohio which seek to promote the integration and to expand the rights of persons with psychiatric and developmental disabilities.  Ms. Costanzo is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College with B.A. in Psychology and earned law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Michael Kendrick works on initiatives on supported decision-making for CPR. These currently consist of five demonstration projects on Supported Decision-Making in Massachusetts and one in Georgia in cooperation with the Georgia Advocacy Office, as well as a technical assistance center for Massachusetts. He has spent the last twenty years in international consulting and prior to that was the Assistant Commissioner for the Massachusetts Developmental Services Department, Director of the Institute for Leadership and Community Development and consultant to the International Initiative On Disability Leadership.

Morgan K. Whitlatch is the Director of Supported Decision-Making Initiatives at the D.C. office of the Center for Public Representation (CPR), where, she develops and implements strategies to advance the decision-making rights of people with disabilities at the state, national, and international levels.

Morgan has dedicated her legal career to working with and on behalf of people with disabilities, including older adults, in matters involving guardianship and alternatives, community integration, and living life free from abuse and neglect. Prior to joining CPR in Fall 2021, she was the Legal Director at Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities (QT). Notably, she co-represented the namesake of QT’s Jenny Hatch Justice Project in fighting for her right to engage in Supported Decision-Making (SDM) instead of being placed in permanent plenary guardianship. Under her leadership, QT also represented the first DC senior to have her guardianship terminated in favor of SDM. She has been recognized by Georgetown University, Human Rights Action – Amnesty International, as making outstanding contributions through her work as a human rights practitioner. Morgan is a former attorney of the protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities in Rhode Island.

Morgan has extensive experience in advancing national, state, and local systemic policy, practice, and training initiatives. While at QT, she was the Lead Project Director of the National Resource Center for SDM. She also served as the Project Director under cooperative agreements that resulted in the National Council on Disability’s 2018 and 2019 reports examining guardianship and alternatives through the lens of federal civil rights law. She co-authored a background paper on SDM and older adults for the Fourth National Guardianship Summit. She also testified about the need for guardianship reform and promotion of SDM at a September 2021 hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution.