Dean’s Luminaries in Law Series

Dahlia Lithwick

Senior Editor and Legal Correspondent at Slate

September 27, 2023 | 4:30 p.m.

Dahlia Lithwick is the senior legal correspondent at Slate and host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary, among other places. Lithwick won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October, 2018. She is the author of “Lady Justice.”

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Abhishek Manu Singhvi

Indian Parliament member and India's leading Supreme Court litigator

October 20, 2023 | 11:45 a.m.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi is one of India’s leading lawyers and a politician. As politician, he is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) and a current Member of the Parliament of India representing West Bengal in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the Indian Parliament. He is also a spokesperson for the INC. He is one of the senior advocates of the Supreme Court of India. He completed his school from St. Columba's School. He obtained B.A.(Hons.), M.A., PhD, PIL educated at St. Stephen's College, Trinity College, Cambridge and Harvard University.

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Dorothy Roberts

George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights

Dean Anthony E. Varona's Luminaries in Law Lecture and Conversation Series welcomed Professor Dorothy E. Roberts, author of "Torn Apart: How the child welfare system destroys black families — and how abolition can build a safer world."

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Jeff Farrah '07

Executive director of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association (AVIA)

Farrah serves as the principal spokesperson for AVIA, leads public policy advocacy for the autonomous vehicle industry, and runs the day-to-day operations of AVIA. Before joining AVIA, he served as general counsel of the National Venture Capital Association.

This was a special edition of the Luminaries in Law series co-hosted by Dean Amit Shukla from the College of Science and Engineering who joined join Dean Varona in moderating the event.

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Zabrina Jenkins

Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Starbucks

Zabrina Jenkins is executive vice president and general counsel for Starbucks, leading legal and regulatory affairs, global security, and ethics and compliance for the company. Additionally, Jenkins serves as an executive champion to the Starbucks Black Partner Network and an advisor to the diversity committee for the Law & Corporate Affairs department. At Starbucks since 2005, Jenkins previously held roles as senior vice president, deputy general counsel, interim chief ethics and compliance officer, lead legal advisor for Teavana, and was a core member of the Starbucks 2018 Philadelphia incident crisis management response team.

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Fernando Laguarda

General Counsel, Americorps

Fernando Laguarda has been general counsel at AmeriCorps since January of 2021. Prior to government service, he was faculty director of the Program on Law and Government and a professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he launched the law school’s LLM in legislation, and founded the nation's first student-centered initiative to study the work of government oversight. Laguarda worked previously for nearly 10 years in the telecommunications industry and for 15 years as a partner at two different Washington, D.C. law firms focusing on technology and competition law.

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David Zapolsky

General Counsel, Amazon

David Zapolsky joined Amazon.com in November 1999 as associate general counsel for litigation and regulatory matters. He now oversees the company’s legal, policy, compliance, and regulatory affairs. Prior to joining Amazon.com, Zapolsky was a partner at the Seattle offices of Dorsey & Whitney and Bogle & Gates. Before moving to Seattle from New York City in 1994, he served as an assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and later practiced law at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

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Tanya K. Hernández

Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law, Fordham University

Tanya Katerí Hernández teaches anti-discrimination law, Critical Race Theory, and trusts and wills. She is an internationally recognized comparative race law expert and Fulbright Scholar. She has previously served as a Law and Public Policy Affairs Fellow at Princeton University, a faculty fellow at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University; a faculty fellow at the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, and as a scholar in residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Hernández’s book, "Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality," is the first comprehensive book on anti-Black violence in the Latinx community.

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