Updated Friday, August 11th, 2023

Anne Marie Murphy – President

Anne Marie is a Principal at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP, where she practices civil litigation focusing on complex commercial litigation, class actions, consumers’ rights, elder financial abuse and nursing home abuse.

Ms. Murphy received her Bachelor of Arts in Science & Technology from Vassar College. She received her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. While attending Georgetown, she worked as a Legislative Assistant in the U.S. Senate. Ms. Murphy has practiced extensively in the area of elder abuse, handling many notable cases, including jury trials, against nursing homes and those who have taken financial advantage of seniors. Ms. Murphy has also acted as co-lead counsel in a number of consumer class actions which have returned millions of dollars to consumers across the country. Ms. Murphy is a member of Consumer Attorneys of California, the American Association for Justice, the San Mateo County Bar Association, the San Mateo Trial Lawyers Association, and is a lifetime member of California Women Lawyers.

Ms. Murphy serves on the Board of Directors of Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) and was Co-Chair of the 2010 through 2014 Donald L. Galine Tahoe Seminars, and Co-Chair of the CAOC Class Action Seminar. Ms. Murphy was elected to the CAOC Board of Governors in 2009 and again in 2010. In 2010, Ms. Murphy was appointed to serve on the Board of Directors of CAOC, she was then elected to the Board of Directors every year since 2011. Ms. Murphy is the Chair of the CAOC Women’s Caucus. In 2010, Ms. Murphy was appointed as a Commissioner on the California Commission on Access to Justice.

Ms. Murphy is involved in a number of community organizations in the Bay Area. Among other community activities, Ms. Murphy served on the Board of Directors of Seven Tepees Youth Program, and as the Secretary and is now on its Advisory Board. Seven Tepees is a non-profit serving promising urban youth in San Francisco, which provides comprehensive services to youth from 5th to 12th grade, including mentoring, academic support and college and career counseling.

Darlene Yee-Melichar, EdD, FAGHE, FGSA – Vice President

Dr. Darlene Yee-Melichar has been a Professor at San Francisco State University since1990 teaching in five academic units (Health Education, Gerontology, EdD in Educational Leadership, Social Work, and Public Affairs & Civic Engagement). Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch and an Assistant Professor at York College, the City University of New York. She was a visiting Assistant Professor at Teachers College/Columbia University and an Assistant Director at Barnard College/Columbia University.

Professor Yee-Melichar teaches with a focus on workforce development for an aging society. She teaches courses in aging processes and theories, ethical and legal issues in aging, long-term care administration, research methods in gerontology, gerontology internship and culminating experience courses. Her research interests include healthy aging, long-term care administration, minority women’s health, and safety research and education; she has published widely on these topics reflected in 6 books, 109 journal
articles, book chapters, book reviews, technical reports, and presented numerous professional and scholarly papers.

Dr. Yee-Melichar has served as an active faculty leader on the Executive Committees of the SF State Academic Senate and the Academic Senate CSU. Among her current community-professional contributions, she serves on the California Department of Aging’s ADRC Advisory Committee, and the Health Plan of San Mateo’s CareAdvantage Advisory Committee. Governor Newsom announced Dr. Yee-Melichar’s appointment to the California State University Board of Trustees. She is the commendable recipient of many awards and honors for her teaching excellence, research scholarship and service contributions.

She earned a B.A. in biological sciences from Barnard College/Columbia University, M.S. in gerontology from the College of New Rochelle, M.S. and Ed.D. in health education from Teachers College/Columbia University. She and her husband (Joseph F. Melichar, PhD) live in the San Francisco Bay Area where they enjoy environmental sustainability, organic gardening, and nature photography.

Terry Donnelly, MSW – Treasurer

Terry has over 30 years of non-profit experience primarily as an advocate for the elderly. Before retirement, he was the Deputy Director at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform where he specialized in residential care/assisted living and Continuing Care Retirement Community legislative and policy issues. Other significant aging experience include Coordinator of the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program in Northern California; Co-Founder and Deputy Director of the National Paralegal Institute, West Coast Division; Director of the Elderly Case Management Program in King County, WA; Aging Specialist for the National Senior Citizens Law Center; and Organizer and Trainer for California Rural Legal Assistance’s statewide Senior Citizens Advocacy Center. He has a MSW from the University of Chicago, where he received an Administration on Aging Fellowship.

He also worked in Taiwan, Thailand, and China and directed an international volunteer program. Terry lives in a retirement community in Southern California.

Kathryn Stebner, Esq. – Secretary

In 1987, Kathryn Stebner, the founder of Stebner Gertler Guadagni & Kawamoto in San Francisco, filed the first elder abuse lawsuit in California history. Since that time, her commitment to the practice of elder law has grown beyond the confines of her law office. Stebner pursued a law degree at the University of San Francisco with designs on becoming a public interest lawyer. She instead started her career at one of the top plaintiffs’ firms in the region, working on medical malpractice cases. Today, Stebner focuses on elder-abuse work. She lectures frequently, teaches classes and seminars and has published more than a dozen articles on both physical and financial elder abuse. She also has testified before the state Legislature, something that seems to sate her penchant for politics.

Cristina Flores, Ph.D., R.N.

Cristina Flores has been a registered nurse for over 35 years. Her nursing practice has included many aspects of the continuum of care, such as home health care, assisted living communities, and the acute care hospital. She holds an M.A. in Gerontology from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in Nursing Health Policy from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Currently, she is a consultant, a lecturer for San Francisco State University, an Adjunct Professor for UCSF, and a volunteer Field Ombudsman. Dr. Flores has conducted empirical research on the quality of care in long-term care for the Institute on Aging in San Francisco and at UCSF. She has developed, implemented, and overseen unique programs in Bay Area Assisted Living communities that drastically improved quality outcomes. Furthermore, she has published several journal articles, book chapters, and four books relative to long-term care administration and quality of care.

Sahana Kiron Magal, M.D., M.A.

Sahana Magal is a Physician and Gerontologist, currently working as a research associate under Dr.Darlene Yee-Melichar at San Francisco State University. Her current research topic is “Raising Awareness of Dementia among Asian Indian Immigrants and their Caregivers.” The abstract of this paper was presented at various national & international conferences.

Sahana received her Bachelors degree in Medicine & Surgery (MBBS) and Doctorate degree (MD) in Internal Medicine from India and has worked as a consulting physician and geriatrician for over 20 years. Dr.Magal also completed her Masters degree in Gerontology (MA) from SFSU in the year 2016. She was honored with a distinguished graduate award for academic excellence.

Ms. Magal currently serves as a committee member at National Partners in Action (NPA) to end Health Disparities-RHEC region IX. Sahana is also a member of SF State Gerontology advisory committee and board member at Navya Foundation.

Sahana is a regular volunteer at a senior retirement community serving Indian elderly population. She is fluent in five Indian languages – Sanskrit, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and knows basic Spanish & Bengali.

Yvonne Troya

Professor Yvonne Troya is the founding legal director of the Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors Clinic (MLPS), a project of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science, & Health Policy. MLPS is a collaboration between UCSF and UC Hastings College of the Law whereby law students work closely with medical providers to provide holistic legal care for older adult patients. MLPS is one of very few geriatric medical-legal partnerships in the country and has been recognized in the New York Times for its innovative approach to legal services for older adults. In Fall 2015, MLPS expanded its services to represent geriatric veterans seen at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

Yvonne previously served as a Supervising Attorney in the Health Practice of the East Bay Community Law Center, a clinic of UC Berkeley Law School. While there, Yvonne worked in two medical-legal partnerships serving low-income adults with HIV/AIDS and families seen at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland. She was also involved in the planning of a law school-based medical-legal partnership in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Yvonne holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley Law and her B.A. in Biology and Latin American Studies from Bowdoin College. She is fluent in Spanish and French.