Melody Webb, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director
Melody is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School. She has spent her career practicing public interest law, both paid and unpaid. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan, then on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Since then, Ms. Webb has focused on legislative and policy advocacy as Systemic Reform Attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, as Legislative Counsel for US Senator Robert Casey, and as Associate General Counsel for Service Employees International Union. While at home raising her young children between 2002 and 2006 she ran several pro-bono advocacy campaigns on a variety of topics, working with local and national partners. She was quoted in the media often, including an appearance on the Dianne Rehm Show on NPR. She has supervised public interest attorneys as Legal Director for the Employment Justice Center, and public interest attorneys as Pro Bono Counsel for Neighborhood Legal Services Program of the District of Columbia. In addition, Ms. Webb has represented indigent parents through the Counsel for Child Abuse and Neglect of the DC Superior Court, and served on the DC Superior Court, Court Improvement Program Advisory Committee. In 2016, the student body of Harvard Law School selected her as the alumni Gary Bellow Public Service Award recipient. From 2019 to 2021, Melody served as the Program Director of GW Law School Jacob Burns Community Legal Clinics, where she managed the legal operations and legal programming of the clinics. Additionally, she has designed and taught on the intersecting topics of race, class and family law and supervised students in the Family Justice Litigation Clinic.
Cheli English-Figaro, Treasurer
Cheli, an initial board director of Mothers Outreach Network, is a co-founder and president emerita of Mocha Moms, Inc. She graduated from Yale University and Columbia University School of Law. Prior to leaving full-time employment outside the home, she practiced law in New York and Washington, D.C. She currently works part-time from home. She has been featured in Ebony Magazine, the Washington Post, the Gazette, and has been a featured writer for the Proctor and Gamble website, HomeMadeSimple.com. She has also apppeared as a regular guest on National Public Radio’s Tell Me More with Michel Martin.
Esther Coleman, President
Esther DeAnn Coleman is a proud native of Jacksonville, Florida. At an early age, Esther became disillusioned with the images of children and teens being thrown into the juvenile justice system and resolved that she could be a part of the solution to this burgeoning problem. After a harrowing trip with Youth Leadership Jacksonville to the county jail, where the students were allowed to speak with several teen inmates who were housed in the jail, Esther’s plans to become an attorney and legal advocate were solidified. She knew at that point that the only way that she would be able to help those in her community fight the allure of crime and to fight against other civil injustices would be to be well versed in the tool that was being used against them– the law. Esther found that the law would be a perfect utilization of her analytical skills and her gifts of language and creative expression. Esther attended the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University where she became president of the school’s section of the National Council of Negro Women; and completed internships at the Florida State Senate and the Levin College of Law’s Center for Governmental Responsibility at the University of Florida. After moving to D.C. to matriculate at the Georgetown University Law Center, Esther nurtured her interest in constitutional law by interning at the Advancement Project and the D.C. Office of the Corporation Counsel. Esther’s desire to empower her community through knowledge of law continues to be the motivating factor for all of the work that she does. Esther is striving to continue to work with community based groups to create and facilitate their public policy platforms and to address the legal issues that the groups that they serve face. Esther has a particular interest in advancing the rights of women and youth and works closely with small business startups. She currently is principal attorney at Executive DC Legal Services and compliance manager for a behavioral health services provider; on the board of directors of Mother’s Outreach Network, and Words, Beats and Life, Inc.; as a trustee of the Shiloh Baptist Church of Washington, DC; and regularly volunteers with Capital Caring, the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts and the Maryland Volunteer Lawyer Service. Esther works to use her talents to inform and encourage others to discover their own power and voice.
Rene Blocker, Secretary
Rene, a long-time advisor to Mothers Outreach Network, is a graduate of Cornell Law School. She worked as Deputy Attorney General for New Jersey, and then from 1994 to 2005 with the Multistate Tax Commission, rising through the ranks to become Interim Executive Director. Since then she has worked as a consultant to small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Diane Lewis, Board Director
Diane Lewis is President of ALTA Consulting Group, Inc., Washington, D.C., a management consulting firm, with extensive experience in health care policy, and community development. Ms. Lewis has worked to extend the reach and effectiveness of health systems in underserved/under resourced communities. She has worked with the non-profit community and foundations to address challenges to economic sustainability and its impact on health equity.
Among other projects, Ms. Lewis served as a consultant to the Bainum Family Foundation’s early childhood initiative which advocates for the advancement of quality early childhood systems and an integrated and sustainable continuum of supports for low-income families in the District of Columbia.
In addition to her work, Ms. Lewis serves on the Board of the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority which provides access to comprehensive and affordable health insurance for people who live and work in the District of Columbia.
In keeping with her commitment to health access, Ms. Lewis also served on the board of the Consumer Health Foundation (now, if, a Foundation for Radical Possibility) focusing on community wellness and equity in the Washington metropolitan area supporting strategic alliances and leveraging community assets through its grant-making to non-profit organizations in the Washington region.
Ms. Lewis is a graduate of the City College of New York (B.A. Economics) and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University (MPA).