Harry Snyder
Principal
Grant Fund Administrator
Senior Grants Analyst
Curriculum Vitae is available here
Mr. Snyder has been a member of the State Bar of California since 1963. He has a long background and experience in cy pres relief, philanthropic best practices (including grant review and recommendations) and consumer protection. As the Director of the West Coast office of Consumers Union he established procedures, including modification of California's escheat laws, for the Court, in the case of People vs. Avco Finance, to authorize cy pres relief in class action cases. In the Levi Straus case he and Consumers Union went further, acting as Amicus, successfully arguing to the Court that the establishment of the California Consumer Protection Foundation was a proper exercise of the Court's equitable powers and an acceptable way to facilitate the distribution of cy pres relief in that case.
Another aspect of his work at Consumers Union was a national project that captured the public assets of non-profit health insurers and providers when they converted to for-profit corporations. That work helped regulators, community groups and Attorneys General establish Health Foundations to distribute these assets. This work, too, was based on an extension of cy pres principles as the next best use of these public funds. As a result of this work over 160 Health Foundations have been established nationally, with over $16 billion dollars in assets. The California Endowment and the Wellness Foundation are two examples of this work in California.
Mr. Snyder was appointed by the San Francisco Superior Court as Cy Pres Fund Administrator for the Vitamin Anti-Trust Cases Consumer Settlement Fund. This Fund has over $45 million. In addition, he has contracted with the California Attorney General to assist in the distribution of the Salton settlement fund (George Forman Grill) $900,000; the Mylan settlement fund, $1.8 million and the Taxol settlement fund, $500,000. In addition to the funds listed on our Home Page, Mr. Snyder has assisted plaintiff's counsel in the distribution of other cy pres settlements including the Marianas Fund working with the Tides Foundation. He has also provided pro bono services to private and public counsel on the distribution of awards and settlement funds.
Mr. Snyder is the author of “Protecting Class Action Settlements” and is a leader in the development and implementation of Best Practices for the distribution of awards and settlement funds resulting from class action and parens patriae cases.
Mr. Snyder teaches a graduate seminar in Health Policy Advocacy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.
Laurie True
Project Director/Grants Manager
Since 2014, Ms. True has been involved in the local and nationwide outreach to over 500 non-profit organizations and public agencies, and participated in the due diligence review, management and evaluation of close to 100 grants and contracts totaling approximately $4 million in class action settlement funds.
Prior to this work, Ms. True served as the Director at the Policy Advocacy Initiative within the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, where her job was to build student, faculty and community capacity to change policy for better health.
Prior to her work at UC Berkeley, Ms. True was the Executive Director at the California WIC Association.
Ann Marie Marciarille
Principal
Grant Fund Administrator
Ann Marie Marciarille is a professor of law specializing in health care law. Her research interests are in health care regulation and finance with a particular interest in health care reform proposals, large and small. Before joining UMKC, she had a long career as health law attorney, including 10 years as a health care antitrust prosecutor for the California Attorney General’s office and several years as a legal services attorney specializing in health care matters.
Professor Marciarille is a summa cum laude graduate of Amherst College and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where her studies were focused on public interest representation. She also holds a Masters in Theology, specializing in ethics, from Harvard Divinity School.
She has published articles on Medicare reform, Medicaid reform, pharmaceutical pricing, health care finance reform, public health, and health care provider quality issues. Professor Marciarille taught Health Law, Health Care Reform, Elder Law, Disability Law, and Public Health Law at the University of California, Hastings, College of the Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and Pacific McGeorge School of Law before coming to the UMKC School of Law where she currently teaches Health Law, Health Care Regulation, Organization and Finance, Antitrust, and Civil Procedure.
Matt Iverson-Comelo
Grants Administrator
Matt Iverson-Comelo has over 12 years of administrative and programatic experience supporting cy pres funds distribution. Starting in 2003, he supported Harry M. Snyder in the promotion, administration, evaluation and distribution of funds related to the Vitamin Cases Consumer Settlement Fund (Vitamins) to improve the health and nutrition of California consumers. The Vitamins case consisted of four separate rounds of grant applications, culminating in $40 million in grants to 107 nonprofit organizations and public agencies.
In addition to supporting Mr. Snyder in the Vitamins case, Mr. Iverson-Comelo has provided administrative and programmatic support for the Salton, Neurontin, Mylan, Taxol, DRAM, eBay and CRT settlement funds. His work has included activities such as promoting the availability of funds, managing and updating the cypresfunds.net website, hosting and recording informational webinars, responding to cy pres fund inquiries, establishing and managing the online application process and generating administrative reports. Furthermore, he has provided status reports to stakeholders such as the California Attorney General’s Office, documented meetings and managed the process for requesting and distributing funds, as well as other related activities.
Mr. Iverson-Comelo has supported Mr. Snyder in his graduate-level teaching work at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health as a teaching assistant and developing the course syllabus. He has also contributed to advocacy manuals produced by Mr. Snyder for The California Endowment by writing case studies and providing editing support.
Mr. Iverson-Comelo graduated with Highest Honors from the University of California at Berkeley where his studies focused on the intersection of human rights and globalization. He was the first continuing undergraduate to receive a Summer Fellowship award from the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley. Besides continuing to support cy pres work initiated by Mr. Snyder, Mr. Iverson-Comelo works with the 501(c)(3) non-profit, Advisers Give Back, to increase access to pro bono financial planning services for underserved communities.
Mr. Iverson-Comelo has a particular interest in how cy pres funds can be used to advance the public interest, while effectively serving the injured consumer class.