About

Martha A. Astor

Martha serves as Counsel, Litigation for DFI and has over 20 years of experience in education. Her work in litigation spans state and federal courts across the country. Her legal career is devoted to public interest litigation. She has served on the boards of numerous civic organizations, including the Government Advocacy Committee for The Florida Bar. 

Martha also taught courses at Northern Arizona University and provided extensive educational consultation across the country. She is a FINRA neutral and a Nationally Certified Counselor.

She earned her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School. She clerked for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals while in law school. She holds a B.S. in Public Relations and an M.A. in Counseling from Northern Arizona University.

Donald A. Daugherty, Jr.

Don serves as Senior Counsel, Litigation for DFI and has over 30 years of experience in trial and appellate litigation, appearing in state and federal courts across the country. Before becoming a public interest litigator in 2019, he had been a partner at three of Wisconsin’s largest law firms and recognized as among the “Best Lawyers in America” and Wisconsin’s “Super Lawyers.”

While in private practice, he represented clients in disputes involving commercial/corporate, health care, information technology, intellectual property, trade regulation, and creditor’s rights issues.  Since joining the public interest sector, he has litigated matters involving education reform, First Amendment rights, administrative law, and campaign finance and election law. 

Don has served on the boards of numerous civic and charitable organizations, including as President of the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association. In 2021, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin appointed Don to the state’s Judicial Commission and, in 2024, re-appointed him for a second term.  He currently serves as the Commission’s chair.

He earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Roger J. Miner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Don is a member of the Wisconsin and the District of Columbia Bars and is admitted to practice in multiple federal courts, including the Second, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, District of Columbia, and Federal Circuits and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Litigation Practice Group.

Virginia (Ginny) Gentles

Ginny is the director of the Education Freedom and Parental Rights Initiative at the Defense of Freedom Institute. Gentles is a long-time school choice advocate and former state and federal education policy leader. She is regularly called on to provide testimony before Congress and provide in-depth analysis of the issues facing American education for Newsweek, National Journal, Fox News, and other major media outlets.

Gentles served as a senior political appointee in the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush. She led the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice, managing the state’s school choice programs. While living in Canada, she worked for the Fraser Institute and the Ontario Ministry of Education. Gentles began her career on Capitol Hill as a legislative assistant and House Budget Committee analyst.

A Florida native, Gentles is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She lives in Virginia with her two daughters.

Clairece Marker

Clairece is the Digital Media Manager for DFI. Previously, she was a Digital Communications Intern for The Heritage Foundation where she aided in creating and maintaining digital content for their social media platforms and website. She was also a contractor for The Resolute Group in Phoenix, AZ where she served as a graphic designer for right-of-center politicians and non-profits primarily involved with school choice issues in a variety of different states. In addition, Clairece is an alumna of the Forge Leadership Network – an organization that seeks to train young professionals in politics, business, and economics through intensive training sessions held in Columbus, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and internationally in Israel.

Clairece holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a minor in marketing and is a part-time student at Columbia Southern University, pursuing a master’s degree in business administration.

Trisha Ruckart

Trisha serves as Operations Manager for DFI.  Before joining DFI, Trisha was the Director of Operations for the North Carolina Family Policy Council where she provided oversight of operations and events and coordinated the development, government relations, communications and research initiatives of the Council.  Prior to that, Trisha was a court reporter in superior court and ran a small business for several years.

Trisha holds a bachelor’s degree in law and public policy from Liberty University and is a certified paralegal.

Paul Zimmerman

Paul serves as Senior Counsel, Policy & Regulatory.  He leads DFI’s Teacher Union Accountability Project and assists with its federal agency transparency and oversight efforts.

From 2019 to 2021, Paul was Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he coordinated agency responses to requests from oversight entities, consulted on legal privileges in the context of litigation and Freedom of Information Act requests, and prepared senior personnel for testimony before congressional committees.  Before he joined Commerce, Paul worked for over a decade in multiple roles at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.  In his first position, as Director of Publications, he served as editor of the Federalist Society’s law review, which features articles authored by legal experts on key developments in 15 practice areas, and he edited and published the organization’s newsletters and white papers.  In his subsequent role, as Deputy Director of International Affairs, Paul advised and assisted civil society organizations and experts in Europe, Canada, and Asia seeking to promote discussion of the rule of law, separation of powers, and individual freedom in their national contexts.  He also coordinated transatlantic exchanges between a network of European judges and their American counterparts and managed a website monitoring international organizations and their impacts on domestic laws and policies.

Paul holds a B.A. in Political Science from Duke University and earned his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  He is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia Bars.