Paul Samuels, JD

Director/President
Legal Action Center

Paul N. Samuels is Director/President of the Legal Action Center, a not-for-profit public interest law firm with offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. specializing in legal and policy issues involving substance use disorders, AIDS and criminal justice. For more than three decades Mr. Samuels has worked on a wide range of SUD legal and policy issues at the federal, state, and local levels, including developing creative strategies to increase public and private financing for treatment and improve the quality of treatment, and working with government agencies, service providers, national organizations, and the recovery community to implement those strategies and educate the public and policymakers. He has lectured in more than 30 States and served on numerous national and state advisory groups, including the Expert Panel of CSAT’s National Treatment Plan and the Advisory Council of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Currently Mr. Samuels is the Co-chair of the Coalition for Whole Health and since 2013 the inaugural Chair of New York State’s Behavioral Health Services Advisory Council. Mr. Samuels is the recipient of a number of awards, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s John P. McGovern, M.D. (ASAM) in 2014; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Innovator Combating Substance Abuse in 2002; AMERSA’s Betty Ford Award in 1998, and Awards from the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors in 1998 and 1992. Mr. Samuels joined the staff of the Legal Action Center upon graduation from Columbia Law School in 1979. He became Executive Vice President in 1983 and Director/President in 1992. He is a graduate of Harvard College.