Alanna Rutherford is Vice President of Global Litigation and Competition at Visa Inc., where see oversees a variety of antitrust and regulatory issues, as well as a wide portfolio of work that includes, among other things, all intellectual property and European litigation. Prior to that, Ms. Rutherford was an equity partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, where her primary practice areas were complex civil litigation and antitrust. She played a leading role in a number of successfully concluded trials and litigation matters. Among her most prominent cases were the constitutional takings case against the United States brought by AIG shareholders, which resulted in a successful trial verdict against the Government; the 9/11 World Trade Center insurance trial concerning whether the terrorist act constituted one incident or two, which resulted in a successful jury verdict for her clients; and a $4 billion settlement on behalf of American Express in its antitrust case against Visa and MasterCard, which was then considered one of the largest settlements in history. In addition to being the youngest and first black equity partner at her firm, Ms. Rutherford has received numerous accolades and honors, including being named to the inaugural edition of Crain’s 100 Women Leading Lawyers in New York, Law 360’s Rising Star – One of the top 5 trial lawyers under 40, National Law Journal’s Outstanding Woman Lawyer 2015 award recipient, and Super Lawyers 2014 – 2018. Ms. Rutherford also serves on the boards of Avenues for Justice, a non-profit alternative to juvenile detention in New York, which she also chairs, and New York Live Arts. Ms. Rutherford attended Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and a senior editor of the Columbia Law Review. She also attended Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the Institute of Political Studies (“Sciences Po”) in Paris, France.
Catherine Weiss
Catherine Weiss is Chair of the Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest and a partner at Lowenstein Sandler. She both directs and participates in the firm's pro bono practice, which dedicates more than 20,000 hours each year to impact litigation, individual representation, and transactional work on behalf of major nonprofit organizations. Before joining Lowenstein Sandler, Catherine served as director of the Division of Public Interest Advocacy in the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate. She supervised a staff of lawyers, policy analysts, and investigators working to protect and advance the public interest through a coordinated program of research, reporting, advocacy, and litigation. Before entering state government, Catherine was Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law where she worked principally on voting rights. For more than a dozen years previously, she worked in the national office of the ACLU, serving as director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project from 1997-2002 and as its litigation director for the preceding five years. Catherine has also worked as a consultant to civil rights and human rights organizations and taught as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark. She clerked for Judge Alvin Rubin of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She holds both a law degree and a masters degree in political science from Yale.
Elizabeth Embry
Elizabeth has spent her career in local and state government in a combination of legal and policy roles. Elizabeth is currently a Special Assistant in the Maryland Office of the Attorney General focusing on investigations. She has also been Chief of the Criminal Division in the Office of the Attorney General, focusing on violent criminal organizations, crimes against vulnerable persons, and health care fraud. She was previously a top deputy to then-Baltimore City State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein. She also has served as a felony prosecutor, as Director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, in the Maryland Department of Labor as a special assistant, as an assistant Baltimore City solicitor, and as an affordable housing fellow in New York City. Elizabeth has served on a variety of non-profit boards, such as the Public Justice Center, Strong City Baltimore, Bikemore, Maryland Art Place, and the Baltimore City College Foundation. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of Maryland School of Law. Earlier this year, Elizabeth was the running mate of Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker in his race for Governor. She was also a candidate for Mayor in 2016, finishing third in a field of thirteen. A native of Baltimore City, Elizabeth graduated from Baltimore City College (high school) in 1995 and went on to receive a B.A. from Yale University in 1999 and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law in 2004.
Sara Moss
Sara Moss is Vice Chairman of The Estée Lauder Companies. In her role, Ms. Moss serves as a senior advisor to the Board of Directors, Executive Management and the Lauder family. She co-leads the Women’s Leaderships Network (WLN), is a leader of the Sustainability Executive Committee and works collaboratively with senior leaders and others across the organization to drive the company’s Women’s Leadership Initiatives and Governance pillars. Previously, Ms. Moss served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for The Estée Lauder Companies, where she was responsible for the company’s worldwide Legal and Global Security functions. Ms. Moss has been with The Estée Lauder Companies for more than 16 years. She began her career as a law clerk for the Honorable Constance Baker Motley, U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of New York, and then became a litigator at Davis Polk & Wardwell. She went on to serve as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted a wide range of federal cases. Moving back to the private sector, Ms. Moss was a senior litigation partner at Howard, Darby & Levin (now Covington & Burling) and then Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Pitney Bowes Inc. Ms. Moss’s passion for the law, women’s leadership and community engagement reaches far beyond her position at the company. She is Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Legal Aid Society and on the NYU Law School Board, as well as the New York Common Pantry Board, The Estée Lauder Charitable Foundation Board and the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee. Ms. Moss has continuously demonstrated a passion for developing female leaders, having most recently established the Sara Moss Women’s Leadership Training Program at NYU Law School. Throughout her career, Ms. Moss has been recognized with many industry awards and honors, including: the New York Law Journal Lifetime Achievement Award, the Legal Aid Society Servant of Justice Award, the Chambers Outstanding In-House Lawyer of the Year Award, the NYU Outstanding Alumna Award, the Anti-Defamation League Human Relations Award, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund “Aiming High” Award, the Minority Corporate Counsel Diversity Award, the Pro Bono Partnership Outstanding Contribution Award, and the Anastasia D. Kelly Transformative Leadership Award. Ms. Moss is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Massachusetts and New York University Law School. She has four children and lives in New York with her husband, Michael Gould.
Sheila Hayre
Sheila is a Visiting Associate Professor and the Waring and Carmen Partridge Faculty Fellow. She joined the faculty at Quinnipiac University School of Law in the fall of 2016 and teaches immigration law and Introduction to Representing Clients. In the Civil Justice Clinic, she supervises students as they represent low-income clients in need of immigration assistance, including asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, and undocumented victims of domestic violence and other serious crimes such as trafficking. Sheila is also the faculty advisor for the International Human Rights Society and for the Human Trafficking Prevention Project, a program that she helped to create in which law students train employees in the hospitality industry and other “frontline” industries on how to recognize and respond to signs of human trafficking. As an educator, Sheila embraces experiential methodologies that bring her students into contact with real-world problems and, often, real clients. Sheila received an A.B. in psychology and an A.M. in anthropology from Stanford University. After graduating from Yale Law School in 2002, she clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Court and then the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. For the next ten years, she worked as a staff attorney at New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Inc., where she practiced both family law and immigration law, working primarily with victims of domestic violence and abuse. From 2013 until 2016, Sheila taught in the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore. Sheila currently chairs the Committee on Human Trafficking for the Connecticut Bar Association; she also serves on the Board of Directors of Connecticut Legal Services, the largest legal aid organization in the state; on the Advisory Board for Quinnipiac’s Albert Schweitzer Institute; and on the Grievance Panel for the Judicial District of New Britain and the Judicial District of Hartford (Avon, Bloomsfield, Canton, Farmington, and West Hartford). Sheila was recently chosen as a James W. Cooper Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation.