Staff

Valle Simms Dutcher

General Counsel

Southeastern Legal Foundation

Valle Simms Dutcher is General Counsel for Southeastern Legal Foundation, an Atlanta, Georgia-based public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law. Valle manages and litigates all Foundation cases in the Southeast and the District of Columbia in concert with local counsel specially retained for their expertise in state practice and procedure or a particular area of law. She served as counsel in the successful Foundation lawsuit challenging the Clinton administration’s plan to use statistical sampling in Census 2000 for purposes of congressional apportionment. The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Glavin et al v. Clinton et al) is considered the most important case during the court’s term by many legal scholars.

Valle is a cum laude graduate of Pace University School of Law in New York, where she received the American Jurisprudence Award in Constitutional Law and was an editorial board member of the Environmental Law Review. She clerked in the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court and the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is the author of several scholarly articles, including The Asbestos Dragon: The Ramifications of Creative Judicial Management of Asbestos Cases, 10 Pace Envt’l L. Rev. 935 (1993) and The Marlboro Man Meets the Orkin Man: The Effect of Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc. on Federal Preemption by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act of Failure to Warn Claims Brought under State Tort Law, 15 J. Prod. & Toxics Liab. 29 (1993); “Counting One, Two, Three,” Legal Times, Vol. XXI, No. 28 (November 30, 1998).

Valle received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Hollins College in Virginia and did graduate work in the writing program at Brown University. In private practice for several years, Valle assumed the duties of General Counsel in 1998.

H. Eric Dial

Development Director

Southeastern Legal Foundation

H. Eric Dial is Director of Development for Southeastern Legal Foundation, an Atlanta-based public interest law firm founded in 1976. Eric established the Development office for the Foundation in 1997, designing and implementing strategic fundraising programs which have enabled the Foundation to become a national leader in public interest law and policy development.

Eric joined the Foundation from the office of U.S. Rep. Mac Collins (R-GA), where he served in both the Washington and Georgia offices. A graduate of several leadership programs, Eric holds several leadership positions in his community. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Georgia State University.