Karen Rowan has been consulting for police departments and not for profits for over a decade, tackling challenging issues which face individual clients. Her consulting career began with the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, D.C. working with numerous police departments to achieve police reform. Karen’s consulting expertise expanded to not for profits focusing on healthcare compliance systems and emergency preparedness challenges for private schools, churches, and community centered organizations.

• Karen retired from the Chicago Police Department as a sworn member after 22 years of service. She started her police career as a patrol officer assigned to the Cabrini Green housing project and was promoted to the rank of sergeant, then lieutenant. She also served 8 years in the Internal Affairs Division as an Assistant Department Advocate and later as Department Advocate. During her tenure in Internal Affairs, Karen received awards for her work on the Austin Seven investigation and subsequent conviction into police corruption, and the arrest and conviction of a corrupt police officer who was trafficking drugs and money.
• Under the leadership of Superintendent Terry Hillard, Ms. Rowan was appointed the first female General Counsel to the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. As senior attorney for the Department, she advised the Superintendent on all major policy, legal, contractual, disciplinary, labor, and legislative matters. She initiated the Risk Management Unit, which evaluated the Department’s current policies and training that may have resulted in potential liability.
• The effort resulted in key changes in the Department’s use-of-force policy, biased based policing, and detention and arrest, which helped lift the Department’s 20 year consent decree for First Amendment violations. Karen’s later appointment as the first female Assistant Deputy Superintendent of the Internal Affairs Division helped propel the disciplinary system forward with the initiation of a behavioral alert system. As the highest ranking female in the Department, she oversaw and directed internal investigations conducted by her staff and worked closely with federal and state prosecutors on joint investigations.
• After retiring from police work, Karen was appointed General Counsel of the Chicago Transit Authority, where she helped successfully negotiate major concessions to labor contracts that allowed significant changes to employee benefits and compensation. Karen also worked for the City of Chicago, Office of Emergency Management and Communications, coordinating the 21 Cities Readiness Initiative which helped prepare Chicago to respond to a catastrophic bioterrorism attack.

Karen is a native of Chicago and received her education from both public and parochial schools. Ms. Rowan earned a B.A. in 1984 from the National College of Education in Evanston, Illinois, and her J.D. from Loyola University of Chicago School of Law in 1989. She was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1989. Ms. Rowan is the recipient of the Woman’s Bar Association of Illinois Woman with a Vision award, a finalist of the Kathy Osterman Award for Superior Public Service and has received numerous police department commendations. She is licensed to practice law in Illinois and Colorado, has been a speaker at national and local conferences, and has been a Board member for many not-for-profit organizations.

Karen Konow recently retired from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) after 29 years of service, achieving the rank of Chief, Bureau of Internal Affairs. As a Police Officer, Sergeant, and Lieutenant, Karen worked in the Bureau of Patrol across the south and west sides of Chicago. In addition to implementing crime-fighting strategies, she worked throughout her career on policy development, labor and disciplinary matters, and training issues.

• Karen twice served the CPD as a Legal Officer working for the Office of the General Counsel, conducting research on search and seizure, traffic pursuits and crashes, bias based policing, and medical screening for arrested individuals. She was appointed the Department’s Equal Employment Opportunity Officer and oversaw discrimination investigations and served as the Department’s liaison to the Illinois Department of Human Rights, the Chicago Commission of Human Rights, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Karen created and conducted training regarding discrimination to ensure department members were apprised of legal standards.
• Karen was initially assigned to Internal Affairs as Commanding Officer of Special Investigations, responsible for directing investigations into misconduct allegations involving high-ranking members of CPD, newsworthy cases, and all allegations of harassment and retaliation. Karen worked closely with the City of Chicago’s Department of Law to ensure legally responsive results.
• Karen continued her CPD career in the Bureau of Organized Crime, serving as Commanding Officer of the Asset Forfeiture Unit and navigating class action litigation regarding forfeiture. Karen supervised the creation of a standard operating procedure, directed the resolution of an investigative backlog, and developed a case management system in coordination with legal counsel. She was appointed to a statewide law enforcement team that responded to a legislative challenge regarding forfeiture, and the team successfully reached a compromise bill that increased forfeiture accountability and preserved its viability for law enforcement. Karen was promoted to Commander of the Vice Division, directing citywide business licensing investigations, human trafficking investigations, and support for state and federal narcotics investigations.
• Karen returned to Internal Affairs upon promotion to Deputy Chief, leading the development of a case management system and the oversight of confidential misconduct investigations. Upon becoming Chief of Internal Affairs, she had responsibility for all Internal Affairs administrative and criminal investigations. She created the first Internal Affairs Consent Decree Compliance Section and was a lead consent decree team member on matters of accountability and transparency.

Karen is a lifelong Chicago resident. She received her B.A. from Loyola University Chicago, her

J.D. from Loyola University of Chicago School of Law in 1999, and is a licensed attorney in Illinois. She is the recipient of numerous Department awards and is a graduate of the Senior Management Institute of Policing from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).

Tom Eicher most recently served as founding Executive Director of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) from 2018 to 2024, where he built a five-bureau division covering fatal police encounters and in-custody deaths, public corruption, investigations of sensitive misconduct allegations against senior law enforcement officers, conviction review, and statewide policing policy.

• Under his leadership, OPIA established New Jersey’s first statewide police officer licensing system, with Tom personally leading the drafting of the enabling legislation and growing the Police Training Commission from 6 to 46 staff to license and train 38,000 sworn officers.
• Tom led the first comprehensive update to New Jersey’s statewide Use of Force Policy in two decades, developing a model policy binding on every law enforcement officer in the state.
• He oversaw the design and implementation of statewide use-of-force and internal affairs policies and reporting databases with public dashboards updated monthly and updated the IA Policy and Procedures directive governing every IA investigation in New Jersey.

Prior to OPIA, Tom served as Deputy U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018, supervising all federal criminal cases in the district and over 100 attorneys. He personally investigated and prosecuted civil rights cases, including the jury conviction of a corrections officer for the rape of an inmate, and negotiated federal corporate monitorships including an $86 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and False Claims Act resolution. He chaired the Criminal Chiefs Working Group representing all 94 U.S. Attorney’s Offices and served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.

Tom began his federal career at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (1987 to 2003), most notably as Chief of the House Bank Task Force on detail to the Department of Justice in Washington. The investigations he supervised resulted in the conviction of four former Members of Congress, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the U.S. House of Representatives, and additional congressional officials for bribery, bank fraud, and obstruction of justice.

Education and Recognition Tom earned his Juris Doctor magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (Order of the Coif, University of Pennsylvania Law Review) and his Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Princeton University. He clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is a retired member of the New Jersey and California bars and a member of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) Research Advisory Board.

His recognitions include the International Association of Prosecutors Award for Prosecutor of the Year (2024), the Inaugural New Jersey Attorney General’s Award for Promoting Public Integrity Through Public Service (2023) awarded annually as the Thomas J. Eicher Award, and the U.S. Department of Justice Director’s Award for Executive Achievement (2018).

Deborah Alexander is an attorney with over three decades of experience spanning both criminal and civil litigation. Her career encompasses extensive trial and motions practice, complemented by judicial experience as a Judge Pro Tem in the King County District Court. She is a Fellow with the University of Chicago’s Leadership and Society Initiative (2025–2026), a role reflecting her commitment to broad societal impact and leadership. Career highlights include:

• Pro Tem Judge for King County District Court (2019 to 2025), presiding over criminal and civil matters in the surrounding Seattle area; conducted risk assessments involving public safety and applied state statutes and legal precedents to maintain consistency and fairness.
• Attorney for Family at the King County Inquest Program (2022 to 2025), evaluating law enforcement involved fatalities through analysis of policy compliance, state-mandated training, use-of-force protocols, de-escalation techniques, and the feasibility of less-lethal alternatives.
• Attorney and Founder of her own law practice. Felony trials, motions practice, legal research, work in alternative specialty courts such as drug diversion court, mental health court, restorative justice, and alternative dispute resolution.
• Assistant State’s Attorney, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (Chicago), trial experience across appeals, misdemeanors, felonies, and juvenile matters, including appellate brief writing and arguments before the Illinois Appellate Court.
• Of Counsel at Saltz, Mongeluzzi and Bendesky representing consumers in national class action litigation including plaintiffs in opioid litigation related to the national opioid crisis.
• J.D., DePaul University College of Law; B.A., University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago Leadership and Society Initiative.
• Active member, Illinois Bar and Washington State Bar.