At LightCore, our mission is to tenderly seek and narrate the deep connection between your being – who you are as a person with unique traits, characteristics and roles – to your actions. Our goal is singular: to provide the court with a personified appreciation of you through the use of a holistic and compelling narrative. We focus on you as a person and endeavor to balance the criminal act with emphasis on your positive attributes, personal history and remorse.
ABOUT LIGHTCORE
”"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light".
-Aristotle
Our Mission
One of the unique draws of working with LightCore, is our access to a vast international network of professionals and experts. Our specialists are uniquely skilled in undertaking thorough record collection, careful review and interviews of key witnesses and experts, we work closely with you and your defense team to procure an individualized mitigation memorandum for your legal team.
Who we are
We are a team of professionals who specialize in criminal mitigation, advocacy in sentencing and parole with a restorative justice orientation. Our skilled specialists and advocates will provide you with comprehensive and effective support during this difficult and challenging time.
What we do
Our specialists undertake an individualized mitigation analysis in an effort to illuminate the unique circumstances surrounding your actions to inspire the court’s decision with as lenient a sentence as possible.
How Does Mitigation Help Your Defense?
Working with a mitigation specialist will add indispensable value to your legal process. Research demonstrates, having a mitigation specialist on your team may help to achieve a reduced sentence. Criminal mitigation incorporates a focused exploration into your unique trajectory and individual characteristics. This unique analysis encompasses a wide cross-section of your life in an attempt to extract the varying types of specific circumstances that apply to your case. Lightcore collaborates and consults with your legal counsel to strategically procure your best possible outcome.
Some examples of common mitigating factors can include:
- scope and extent of the role you played in the criminal action,
- unusual circumstances,
- extent of harm done,
- lack of previous record,
- relative necessity of the actions,
- remorse,
- presence of addiction,
- difficult or traumatic personal history,
- restitution etc.
At LightCore, our specialists have outstanding clinical and exploratory skills that will help your defense team to identify these factors.
Our team
With years of experience as a team leader in non-profit criminal justice organizations, Rivka Tamir combines extensive knowledge, unique professionalism and visionary leadership skills in her role as LightCore’s team leader and case manager. A brilliant coordinator and communicator, Rivka manages multi-faceted initiatives with organization, precision and diligence. Her empathy and compassion are known by her team to be as reliable as her critical and strategic thinking, making Rivka an invaluable leader propelling our efforts to success.
Cori Chertoff is an expert mitigation specialist, with over 20 years of experience and a background in psychotherapy, crisis and trauma intervention and restorative justice. Her work emphasizes respect, humility, accountability, trust and healing and seeks to inspire a compassionate and enlightened result.
Known for her comprehensive and compelling mitigation narratives told through written memorandums and mitigation videos, she enters the world of her clients and thoroughly assesses the best ways to maximize positive impact. Her wealth of knowledge and experience is of benefit to the defense team’s strategy and it has led to leniency for the client.
Cori is the author of several widely replicated transformative programs. She also trains and supervises mitigation specialists in federal and state cases, sentencing, clemency and parole. She is a frequent speaker and moderator at criminal justice conferences.
Tanya Leach is an attorney, licensed psychoanalyst and mitigation specialist. Tanya earned her Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law and completed psychoanalytic training at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, both located in New York City. Tanya has extensive mitigation experience, gained through her work as a Staff Attorney in the litigation department of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, as a volunteer with the Osborne Association's Longtermers Responsibility Project, and in private practice.
Huma Rashid is a respected state and federal criminal defense attorney, clemency expert, and mitigation specialist. She incorporated strong mitigation techniques and presentations into her daily practice and believes without question that we are all better than the worst thing we have ever done. Huma graduated from the John Marshall School of Law, now UIC John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois. She spent more than seven years as a criminal defense attorney and is well known for her sentencing memoranda that have aided countless criminal defendants in receiving probation or below-United States Sentencing Guideline sentences. She is a strong advocate for criminal justice reform and the agency of criminal defendants.
Reena graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Political Science and Psychology from Arcadia University and received the Saul Ewing Law award for best constitutional law brief and the Joan Hulse award for the senior with the highest GPA in political science. Following graduation, she was accepted into the Americorps VISTA program where she worked with at-risk youth and underprivileged families at a community center affiliated with Catholic Charities in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. During this time she was awarded a grant from the non-profit organization SCRIBE to co-produce an advocacy film for members of the community center.
Subsequent to serving as an Americorps VISTA, Reena continued to take graduate courses in social work at the University of Pennsylvania while working as a social worker with foster youth and their biological and foster parents. In 2017, she began working first as a case manager at the Aleph Institute and then after a lengthy training became a mitigation specialist. In 2020, Reena started her own mitigation practice and currently works with clients throughout the country on pre-sentencing, post-conviction, and clemency cases and is a valued member of LightCore Mitigation.
Eli Laber is a mitigation specialist with a growing track record of effective results achieved through persuasive sentencing memoranda, clemency applications and parole submissions. He is also adept at producing impactful videos that serve as compelling supplements to clients’ mitigation submissions.
Having served for 13 years as the director of a nonprofit organization that provides programs and services for individuals with special needs and their families, Eli has cultivated a strong sense of empathy for those facing difficult circumstances in life. In helping parents navigate the daily challenges associated with raising a special needs child, training volunteers on how to serve as companions and mentors to people with special needs, and implementing creative programs and activities that promote inclusion for the special needs community, Eli has also proven himself an intuitive listener, wise counselor and efficient multitasker. All of these energies and skills are now serving as invaluable assets in his advocacy work on behalf of those finding their lives in turmoil, facing the most harrowing and distressing of situations as they navigate the criminal justice system.
Having served for 13 years as the director of a nonprofit organization that provides programs and services for individuals with special needs and their families, Eli has cultivated a strong sense of empathy for those facing difficult circumstances in life. In helping parents navigate the daily challenges associated with raising a special needs child, training volunteers on how to serve as companions and mentors to people with special needs, and implementing creative programs and activities that promote inclusion for the special needs community, Eli has also proven himself an intuitive listener, wise counselor and efficient multitasker. All of these energies and skills are now serving as invaluable assets in his advocacy work on behalf of those finding their lives in turmoil, facing the most harrowing and distressing of situations as they navigate the criminal justice system.
Clinical Support
Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychologist - Principal Investigator, Clinical Director, Faculty Past Secretary, National Academy of Neuropsychology Foundation
LCSW psychotherapist and Director of Brooklyn Somatic Therapy
Rebecca Stone, LCSW, is a trauma therapist and founder and president of Brooklyn Somatic Therapy, a boutique group practice specializing in trauma focused psychotherapy. As an experienced restorative justice practitioner, group facilitator and mitigation specialist, Rebecca has facilitated groups for the Osborne Association's Long-Termers Program in Fishkill Prison, supporting inmates with their parole applications and hearings, and is currently a restorative justice facilitator with Good Shepherd Mediation. In addition to leading mitigation training groups, she is also a teacher for The Hakomi Institute, training therapists in healing developmental trauma through somatic and mindfulness-based interventions.
Rebecca Stone, LCSW, is a trauma therapist and founder and president of Brooklyn Somatic Therapy, a boutique group practice specializing in trauma focused psychotherapy. As an experienced restorative justice practitioner, group facilitator and mitigation specialist, Rebecca has facilitated groups for the Osborne Association's Long-Termers Program in Fishkill Prison, supporting inmates with their parole applications and hearings, and is currently a restorative justice facilitator with Good Shepherd Mediation. In addition to leading mitigation training groups, she is also a teacher for The Hakomi Institute, training therapists in healing developmental trauma through somatic and mindfulness-based interventions.
