Biography of President Karen Gross
President Karen Gross has had a long and distinguished career as an academic and community development leader. For more than two decades, she was a Professor of Law at New York Law School where she specialized in consumer finance and over-indebtedness. In addition, she was, until recently, the President and CEO of an educational non-profit organization that designs, implements and studies programs to improve the financial literacy skills of consumers called The Coalition for Consumer Bankruptcy Debtor Education. She has also served as a consultant to non-profit organizations, including for the United Way of New York City and the Council on Legal Educational Opportunity (CLEO). A cum laude graduate of Smith College, where she was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Dr. Gross graduated cum laude from Temple University School of Law, having spent her final year of law school at the University of Chicago.
Prior to entering legal academia, President Gross taught at the high school and college levels and practiced law in Chicago and New York. Dr. Gross has earned a national and international reputation as a scholar, teacher, administrator and advocate dedicated to increasing understanding of the human impact of over indebtedness and improving the lives of those less privileged. Her legal scholarly work has been published in leading journals, including the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Notre Dame Law Review. Her most recent work on financial literacy education has appeared in Behavioral Sciences and the Law, the Journal of Student Affairs and Financial Counseling and Planning Journal. Her prize-winning book, FAILURE AND FORGIVENESS, was published by Yale University Press. She has also written essays and op-ed pieces published in the popular press, including the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, University Business, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. She writes a regular column called Money $ense for the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals.
Dr. Gross speaks frequently in the U.S. and abroad on financial literacy, student indebtedness and consumer finance. She is also regularly invited to speak on television and radio and appears in the print media on issues affecting consumers. She has conducted empirical and historical research on women and money, worked with individual debtors as a volunteer lawyer at New York Legal Aid Society, and participated in several court appointed gender fairness committees, focusing on the role of women in the professions. She has served on numerous boards and chaired committees within professional and academic organizations. She has testified before local and federal governmental bodies including, most recently, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs and the Federal Financial Literacy and Education Commission. President Gross is the recipient of numerous awards and grants including, most recently, the 1999 Legal Aid Society Pro Bono Award, the 2002 New York State Bar Association's President's Pro Bono Service Award, the 2004 American Association of University Women (AAUW) Education Foundation Senior Scholars Special Commendation of Honor and the Westchester Community College 2006 Women's History Month Honoree.
