First Star Institute Welcomes New Board Member

We are delighted to welcome Ms. Sherry A. Quirk as our newest board member. After a 40 year career in the electric energy field, Ms. Quirk has retired from her position as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Designated Agency Ethics Official (“DAEO”), and Corporate Secretary of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Ms. Quirk has had extensive involvement in addressing high impact issues related to child abuse and neglect. She began providing pro bono services in advocacy for abused and neglected children and adult survivors in 1991, and co-founded several national advocacy groups – the American Coalition for Abuse Awareness, One Voice, and First Star. Her law firms – Verner Liipfert Bernhard, McPherson and Hand from 1991-2001; Sullivan and Worcester from 2001-2007; and Schiff Hardin from 2007-2015 – also furnished significant pro bono support. The organizations she co-founded were involved in a variety of issues, from addressing he legal rights of adult survivors to educating Congress on laws impacting children to filing amicus curiae briefs to analyzing and grading key state laws on protection of children, to name a few. She is deeply interested in identifying and advancing key initiatives with potentially high impacts on child protection, particularly in the area of sexual abuse.