Conference Speakers and Panelists
Keynote Speaker
Louise Sams
Executive vice president and general counsel, Turner Broadcasting System Inc. and president, Turner Broadcasting System International
Sams oversees Turner Broadcasting System's legal matters worldwide and directs a staff of about 80 lawyers in cities around the globe. She also oversees production, distribution and ad sales for all of Turner's entertainment networks and media services outside North America. Sams worked as a corporate associate at White & Case LLP in New York before she joined TBS in 1993. Sams graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as executive editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law.
Developing Leadership Panel
Jeanna A. Brannon
Brannon is a partner at Morris, Manning & Martin, where she focuses on assisting clients in real estate development projects including residential resorts, multi-family projects, shopping centers and mixed-use developments. She served as head of the legal team for the developers of Atlantic Station in Atlanta. Her honors include being selected as a Georgia Super Lawyer in Atlanta magazine for 2005-2009.
Jeanine Gibbs Garvie
Garvie is a litigation partner at McKenna, Long & Aldridge and president of the Atlanta chapter of the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. She is a frequent lecturer and in 2009 was one of Atlanta magazine's Georgia Rising Stars.
Allegra Lawrence-Hardy
Lawrence-Hardy, a partner at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, is co-leader of the firm's Business and Commercial Litigation team and chairs the firm's Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Over the years, her work has been recognized by Georgia Trend magazine, the Fulton County Daily Report, Atlanta Woman and the Gate City Bar Foundation.
Lisa Moore
Moore is the executive director of Georgia Lawyers for the Arts, an organization providing legal assistance to artists.
Path to Public Interest Panel
Sue Colussy
Colussy is program director for immigration services at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, where, for more than two decades, she has helped provide legal services to aliens detained by immigration services who cannot afford their own attorneys.
Chara Fisher Jackson
Jackson, legal director for the ACLU of Georgia, recruits and trains volunteer attorneys to take civil liberties cases.
Aimee Maxwell
Maxwell is executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project, which works to free the wrongfully convicted and help the exonerated rebuild their lives after their release from prison.
Ruth Rocker
Rocker is an assistant public defender with the DeKalb County Public Defender's Office, and a 2000 graduate of the Emory School of Law.
Women in Human Rights Panel
Monica Khant
Khant is program director at the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network, which coordinates legal representation for immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S.
Azadeh Shahshahani
Shahshahani is director of the ACLU of Georgia's National Security and Immigration Rights Project, which is aimed at helping Georgia comply with international human rights standards in the state's treatment of refugee and immigrant communities.
Melanie Velez
Velez is a managing attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights. She has been at SCHR since 2004 and litigates prison and jail conditions in Georgia and Alabama as well as cases to ensure that indigent defendants in Georgia are provided with counsel.
Navigating the Economic Downturn Panel
Melissa Segel
Segel is an associate in the Atlanta office of Hall, Booth, Smith & Slover PC, where she focuses her practice on healthcare law. Prior to joining the firm, Segel worked in the insurance industry for more than a decade, specializing in property and special investigations.
Rebecca Strickland
Strickland is an attorney and registered patent agent with the Chapar Firm LLC, based in Conyers, Ga. Strickland, who focuses her practice on intellectual property law, commercial transactions and business litigation, worked as a software consultant prior to attending law school.
Tamara Caldas
Caldas is managing attorney of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, which coordinates free legal services for low-income Fulton County residents by private lawyers. Prior to joining AVLF, Caldas spent the majority of her legal career advocating for the civil and human rights of prisoners in Georgia and Alabama.
After Big Law Panel
Sharon Hill
Hill is executive director of Georgia Appleseed, an organization that coordinates lawyers for pro bono work tackling social issues.
Jeanene Jobst
Jobst is counsel for Turner Broadcasting System Inc. in Atlanta and manages the international trademark portfolio for Cartoon Network and other regional childrens’ networks, as well as the domain name portfolio for the entire company. Prior to joining Turner, Jobst was a trademark lawyer in the Atlanta offices of Powell Goldstein and Womble Carlyle. She graduated from Emory Law in 2001.
Kimberly Johnson
Johnson, a litigator at Doffermyre Shields Canfield & Knowles, practiced at Jones Day in Atlanta for four years before joining her current firm.
Elizabeth Stone
Stone is a staff attorney for Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein of the Georgia Supreme Court. Before taking that position, Stone worked as an in-house attorney at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as a health care associate at a Milwaukee-based law firm, as a litigation associate at Long, Aldridge & Norman in Atlanta (now McKenna, Long & Aldridge) and as a judicial clerk.
Polly Price
Professor Price, who serves as associate dean of faculty at Emory Law, practiced law at King & Spalding in D.C. and Atlanta before entering academia. She recently published a book on Richard S. Arnold, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals judge she clerked for after law school.
Empowering the Powerless Panel
Claudia Saari
Saari is the interim circuit public defender for the DeKalb County Public Defender Office's Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit. Since joining the office in 1987, Saari has tried a wide variety of cases, ranging from DUI to death penalty cases. Saari serves on a number of committees and boards including the Indigent Defense Committee for GACDL, the Board of Directors for the Southern Public Defender Training Center and the Advisory Board for the Emory Public Interest Law Committee. In 2009, Saari was the recipient of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Indigent Defense Award. She is a 1987 graduate of the Emory School of Law.
Priya Lakhi
Lakhi is an attorney with the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender, which protects indigent defendants charged with capital crimes and facing the death penalty. She has been chosen for the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers’ 2010 Leadership Academy.
Haley Schwartz
Schwartz is the director of the Breast Cancer Legal Project (BCLP) of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. The BCLP provides free civil legal services to low-income breast cancer patients and survivors in metro-Atlanta. She also serves by court appointment as a Guardian ad Litem for children in contested custody disputes through a program with the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation. In May 2009, Haley received the American Cancer Society’s Lane W. Adams Quality of Life Award, and in 2005 the National Association of Women Lawyers named her as the Outstanding Woman Law Graduate of Emory University School of Law.
Mariel Sivley
Sivley is a staff attorney at the Georgia Law Center for the Homeless, which provides legal services to Atlanta’s homeless population in the areas of family law, social security disability, eviction, wage claim and other civil issues.