Born in Chicago, Illinois on March 8, 1938, Tom has had a long career as a public interest lawyer and social activist. With Dr. Arthur Barsky, he established the Center for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Vietnam in 1966 to treat war-injured children. The Center treated thousands of injured children, including Kim Phuc, whose photo running naked from her napalmed village shocked the world. The Center continues today as a national center specializing in dental and facial reconstructive surgery. After the American defeat, Tom negotiated the release of prisoners, and participated in a class action lawsuit against Henry Kissinger and adoption agencies after it was discovered that many of the children “rescued” in the final days of the war in the U.S. sponsored “Orphan Airlift” were not orphans, but had been placed in the airlift by panicked parents. He assisted telling the story of one of these children in the documentary “Daughter from Danang”, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize by the Sundance Film Festival and was a 2002 Oscar nominee. In 1961 he helped train the first group of Peace Corps Volunteers after establishing the Yale Men Abroad program with Chaplain William Sloane Coffin and teaching in West Africa. He also served as Deputy Director of California Rural Legal Assistance, and heads Green Cities Fund, a non profit organization with projects in Vietnam, Haiti, Cuba and Afghanistan. Featured with his wife Tran T. Nhu in the New York Times he is a senior partner in the law firm of . He is a graduate of The Farm School, New Trier High School, Yale and Stanford Law School. In 2013, he was inducted into the New Trier High School Hall of fame, along with fellow inductees Bobbi Brown, Scott Turow, and James McNerney.
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