Ms. Wenk joined the chapter as staff lawyer in 1992 and became legal director the next year.

Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the civil liberties group, said the recall was "a fiasco in waiting."

In 2004, Walczak was named legal director for the statewide affiliate.

In 1982 he became the legal director of ArtLaw, a position he held until 1984.

Ms. Liebesman, the group's legal director then, looks serious again, grim.

She is former legal director of My Sister's Place, a shelter for battered women.

He says he took the editor's and legal director's legal advice at the time.

He began his work for the civil liberties union as an intern and became legal director at the organization's Houston branch soon after graduation.

He then worked as a lawyer and legal director.

"We were worried that the officers would send the children away or destroy the records," said Estrada, the organization's legal director.