Molly Curren Rowles

Executive Director

Molly Curren Rowles joined the ACLU of Maine as its executive director in May 2024. Prior to this role, she was executive director of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine for seven years, where she worked to engage community, build programs, grow capacity, and strengthen organizational development. Molly moved to Maine in 2008 for a Coffin Fellowship at Pine Tree Legal Assistance, where she trained as a litigator in complex family law cases and domestic violence advocacy. She then served as Pine Tree's York County Attorney, providing direct representation in consumer, eviction, public benefits, parental rights, and habitability cases. In 2016, she took on the role of Intake Manager at Pine Tree and helped to build a statewide intake program that connected six offices around the state through training, support, technological resources, and infrastructure. As a child growing up “off the grid” on a small family farm in rural New Hampshire, Curren Rowles developed a deep connection to the natural world and a profound appreciation of the Bill of Rights. She is honored to serve the ACLU of Maine as it addresses some of the most contested and critical civil rights and civil liberties issues we face – from strengthening our democracy and supporting the rule of law, to preserving bodily autonomy and holding government accountable. Curren Rowles is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Smith College, from which she earned her B.A. in Religion and Biblical Literature. She earned her J.D. from Cornell Law School with a concentration in public interest law. She serves on the board of the National Digital Equity Center and is a member of the Maine Artificial Intelligence Task Force. She lives in Portland with her husband, three children, two cats, one dog, and five chickens.

Zachary Heiden

Chief Counsel

Zach Heiden is the chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine. Zach was hired in 2004 as the organization’s first staff attorney and he was instrumental in building the ACLU of Maine’s legislative advocacy program before the organization had policy counsel on staff. He has litigated a wide variety of cases to defend the civil rights and civil liberties of people in Maine, including the rights of artists, immigrants, incarcerated people, journalists, pregnant people, protesters, religious minorities, students, and whistleblowers. New England Super Lawyer magazine called him “a hero to beer drinkers everywhere” for his challenge to censorship of alcoholic beverage label illustrations. In 2008, Zach served as a member of the Maine Judicial Branch Indigent Legal Services Commission, which helped restructure the delivery of constitutionally mandated legal representation to people who had been accused of committing a crime and could not afford legal representation. Zach has also served on the Judicial Branch Taskforce on Electronic Court Records Access and the Judicial Branch Advisory Committee on Fees. In 2012, Zach served on the Executive Committee of Mainers United for Marriage, the statewide campaign to win marriage equality. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law. Prior to working at the ACLU of Maine, Zach was an associate in the litigation department of the Boston firm Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, where he worked on white-collar defense and securities litigation. He began his career after law school clerking for the Honorable Susan Calkins on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. He is the author of Fences and Neighbors, 17 Law and Literature 225 (2005) and Too Low a Price: Waiver and the Right to Counsel, 62 Maine L. Rev. 488 (2010). Zach earned his Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College in 1995, his Master of Arts in Modern Irish and British Literature from the University of Florida in 1998, and his Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 2002. During law school, he served as managing editor of the BCLS International and Comparative Law Review and founded BCLS’s first chapter of the American Constitution Society. He was awarded the Law School Alumni Association Award at graduation. In his free time, Zach enjoys spending time with his family at the ocean and eating meals in their backyard with neighbors. His wife, Alisha, is a writer and teacher.

Aaron Rosenblum

Engagement & Education Coordinator

Aaron joined the ACLU of Maine in 2025. He collaborates within the organization and with external partners to engage our members and the public with the ACLU of Maine’s mission and critical work. Before joining ACLU of Maine, Aaron was an adult services librarian at the Portland Public Library, where he designed inclusive public health and sustainability programs and offered multi-lingual reference services. Prior to that, Aaron worked as a regional programs coordinator for the Louisville Free Public Library, producing adult programming on a wide range of topics across a busy and diverse urban library system. In these and other roles, he has consistently sought opportunities for innovative public engagement and outreach, with a focus on inclusion and accessibility. As an artist, he has performed across North America, produced radio programs and podcasts broadcast or distributed in the US, Europe, and the UK, and has exhibited and led workshops in libraries, schools, and museums in the eastern US. Aaron earned a Master of Library and Information Science degree from McGill University (2010), and a Bachelor of Arts in music and cultural studies from Hampshire College (2003). In his free time, Aaron can be found in the woods on a bicycle, at home creating sound and audiovisual art, or at the end of a leash wherever his dog leads him.

Hon. James Orenstein

Retired Federal Magistrate Judge, Eastern District of New York

Hon. Joyce Vance

Former U.S. Attorney, Northern District of Alabama