What General Counsel Need to Know About Ombuds

Janet P. Judge is the co-founder of the Education & Sports Law Group and a five-time peer-selected sport lawyer of the year (Best Lawyers). With more than 30 years of experience serving the needs of higher education clients, Janet regularly advises schools and conferences at the NCAA Division I, II, and III levels regarding a broad spectrum of civil rights and intercollegiate sports law matters. Perhaps best known for her Title IX athletic equity work having been involved substantively in many of the significant Title IX athletics litigation matters to date, Janet brings a deep bench of very relevant legal and sports experience when advising schools. She has worked as an antitrust, employment and labor law litigator, program investigator, NCAA D1 athletics administrator, NCAA D1 compliance director, NCAA D1 and DIII intercollegiate coach, and competed as a three-sport NCAA DI athlete. In addition to her law practice, Janet is an accomplished public speaker and regularly presents on higher education and sports law developments relevant to school presidents, sports administrators, FARs, coaches, medical personnel, and student-athletes, including at NACUA, NCAA, NACDA, Sports Lawyers, Women Leaders, Fraternal Law, ACE, AASCU, and NACUBO events. 

Janet is a graduate of Harvard College and Boston University School of Law. Following law school, Janet clerked for Judge Stahl on the First Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2022, Janet was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Franklin Pierce University in recognition of her civil rights, sports, and higher education work. An active NACUA member since 2004, Janet is a former NACUA Board Member. She currently serves on NACUA’s BACDI (Chair) and Annual Conference Programming (member) Committees. She is recipient of NACUA’s Distinguished Service and First Decade Awards. 

Jessica Kuchta-Miller (pronounced “cook-ta”), MA, JD, was recently named as the University ombuds at Duke University. Before joining Duke University in the fall of 2022, Jessica served as the inaugural staff ombuds at Washington University in St. Louis for seven years and taught Mediation Theory & Practice as an adjunct law professor. She started her career as an organizational ombuds at the University of Colorado Boulder as an associate ombuds where she worked with students, staff, and faculty.

Prior to becoming an organizational ombuds, Jessica worked for 11 years at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. At Mitchell Hamline, she taught as an adjunct clinical professor for the law school’s Mediation Clinic, where she developed curriculum and supervised law student mediators in area conciliation and housing courts. She also served for five years as a project administrator for Mitchell Hamline’s nationally-ranked Dispute Resolution Institute. While at Mitchell Hamline, she was appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court to the Alternative Dispute Resolution Ethics Board whose purpose is to promote the ethical use of alternative dispute resolution in the state courts.

A licensed attorney and qualified neutral, she has presented at numerous conferences and seminars and has trained hundreds of individuals in mediation, negotiation, conflict resolution, and communication skills.

Jessica is an active member of the International Ombuds Association (IOA)–the largest professional association of organizational ombudsman practitioners worldwide. She recently completed a term on the board of directors and currently serves as IOA’s primary representative to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education. She is a member of the Advocacy Committee, frequently teaches the Foundations of the Organizational Ombuds course and mentors new ombuds.

In February 2022, Ellen Miller became the second Executive Director of the International Ombuds Association. She is a collaborative, creative leader with more than 25 years of association and governance experience including organizational management, program development, advocacy, stakeholder engagement, service implementation, and strategic planning /positioning. A trained mediator and facilitator, Ellen has a proven ability to develop and maintain strong, effective relationships to create sustainable solutions. Ellen is particularly recognized for her skills in assessing, prioritizing, and aligning organizational big-picture needs and working collaboratively to develop effective solutions. She is seen as a problem-solver and innovator in organizational management and stakeholder engagement. Born and raised in Canada, she addresses DEIB and other association opportunities through a unique lens.

Previously, Ellen served as Executive Director of the California Lawyers Foundation, and Associate Executive Director (Initiatives and External Relations) of the California Lawyers Association where she provided strategic direction and organizational development for a myriad of new programs and initiatives including DEI, access to justice, health and wellness, public education, and bar relations, and several foundational projects. Prior to joining CLF/CLA, she served as the Executive Director/CEO of the San Diego County Bar Association and as Section Director of the Section of Dispute Resolution at the American Bar Association.

An active volunteer, she is president of the National Association of Bar Executives and a member of the American Society of Association Executives and the California Society of Association Executives. In her spare time, she loves to cook, golf with her husband, visit her daughter at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, PA, and is completing a certificate in Change Management from Cornell. She lives in San Diego, CA.

Steven Prevaux is the Faculty and Staff Ombuds for the University of South Florida serving over 15,000 employees across campus locations in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota. Steve served as General Counsel for the USF Board of Trustees for 12 years prior to launching the Ombuds Office in 2016. He is an active Certified Organizational Ombudsman Practitioners (CO-OP©) and Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil and Appellate Mediator. He earned separate Board Certification as a Legal Specialist in Education Law (2011-2021) and has been named as among the “Florida Legal Elite” by Florida Trend Magazine.

While serving on the Board of Directors of the International Ombudsman Association (IOA) he was elected Vice President (2020-2022).  He previously served on the Board of Directors the Florida Academy of Professional Mediators (FAPM) and of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA). He is a founding member of the Florida Bar Education Law Committee and was awarded “Top Corporate Counsel” by the Tampa Bay Business Journal in 2014.

Steven earned his B.A., with distinction, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a Fulbright award and participated in the Fulbright International Education Administrators Program in France in 2015. He has served as an IEA Peer Reviewer for the U.S. Fulbright Commission.