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Lisa Gasbarre Black, Esq.

General Counsel

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Lisa Gasbarre Black, Esq. has served as General Counsel to Catholic Charities, Diocese of Cleveland since 2000. As General Counsel, Lisa provides legal counsel to the President/CEO of Catholic Charities, its leadership staff, and Board of Directors. Known for her honesty, integrity, and acting with conviction, Lisa is pragmatically oriented. She specializes in matters involving corporate law, outpatient and residential treatment centers, emergency assistance programs, family centers, and other human service programs that serve vulnerable populations.

A champion for social justice, Lisa has been active in numerous pro bono and access to justice initiatives throughout her career, and has served on the boards of Hispanic Urban Minority Drug Abuse Outreach Program (HUMADAOP) and the Alta House. She also served as the chair of the Governance Committee of the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation. She taught courses in law for non-traditional students in the Ursuline College Accelerated Degree Program (UCAP) and a graduate level course in First Amendment law at John Carroll University. Among her many accomplishments, Lisa is a prolific author, a member of the 2018 Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association’s Leadership Academy, and the recipient of the Justice for All Volunteer of the Year award (2022) and the Crain’s Cleveland Business General & In-house Counsel award, nonprofit category (2012).

For over a decade, Lisa has brought legal interns into the in-house general counsel office of Catholic Charities. Originally, she nurtured first-year law students in the 1L Clerkship Program, formally known as the Minority Clerkship Program. She has since expanded the internship opportunities at Catholic Charities to include the Louis Stokes Scholars intern program.

Lisa earned her juris doctor from The Cleveland State University College of Law, bachelor’s in communications from John Carroll University, and holds a Healthcare Bioethics certification from the National Catholic Bioethics Center. She is a member of the American Bar Association, Ohio State Bar Association, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, Association of Corporate Counsel, Justinian Forum, and Women’s General Counsel Group. Ultimately, Lisa attributes her successes to her life’s motto, Fac Omnia Bene (“do all things well”).