Legal Advisory Board

James (Jim) S. Turner Chairman

James S. Turner Esq., original Nader's Raider and partner in the Washington, DC, law firm of Swankin & Turner (founded in 1973) wrote the "ChemicalFeast: The Nader Report on Food Protection at the Food and Drug Administration/' which Time Magazine said, "... may well be the most devastating critique of a U.S. Government Agency ever issued." He served as consumer affairs consultant to Democratic Governor John Gilligan of Ohio, special counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs chaired by Senator George McGovern (D-SD), and the Government Operations Sub-committee on Government Research led by Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn). Turner successfully opposed a 1975 Federal Trade Commission proposed ban of the word "organic;" helped lobby the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 through Congress and helped stop a 1999 Department of Agriculture effort to weaken organic food standards. His legal team got FDA to approve acupuncture needles. He currently serves as board chair of Citizens for Health and hosts a weekly one hour internet inter-view program, "Of Consuming Interest," on the Progressive Radio Network. Turner served as gunnery and nuclear weapons handling officer on U.S. Navy ships from 1962-1966. He graduated from Ohio State University with a BA in history and political science in 1962, where he was a leader in the Ohio State Free Speech Movement, and then from Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in 1969, where he was co-director of the Columbus Ohio Vietnam Summer anti-Vietnam War group, and an editor of the Law and Civil Rights Bulletin. Born in Columbus and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he now lives in Washington, DC, with his partner, Betsy E. Lehrfeld.

For more information please visit http://www.swankin-turner.com.