WGSD member promotions

Our Women Give San Diego members are incredibly talented women who are doing amazing work in San Diego. Here are two recent member promotions!

Women Give San Diego member Johanna S. Schiavoni, Esq. has recently joined Jacobs Schlesinger & Sheppard LLP as a partner. Johanna is an attorney specializing in state and federal court appellate litigation, including business litigation, criminal and white-collar cases, and immigration appeals. She brings more than six years of experience at Latham & Watkins LLP, an AmLaw 100 firm, and two years of experience as a law clerk to the Hon. M. Margaret McKeown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Hon. Christina A. Snyder on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Johanna received her J.D. in 2002 from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her B.A. in 1998 from Washington University in St. Louis. Johanna also volunteers with many local organizations in addition to Women Give, including serving as the Programs Chair for the Appellate Court Committee of the San Diego County Bar Association and as a member of the boards of directors of the La Jolla Music Society and the Lawyers Club of San Diego.

Jacobs Schlesinger & Sheppard LLP is a boutique law firm specializing in both immigration and nationality law and appellate litigation. The firm's Immigration and Nationality Law Practice Group represents clients, including large and small companies and individuals, in all areas of immigration-related cases, including applications before the USCIS, consular processing, and removal defense. The firm's Appellate Practice Group provides a full range of legal services to clients and trial counsel, including strategic counseling, research, and drafting in pre-trial, trial, and post-trial proceedings, and representation in appeal and post-appeal matters in state and federal courts.

Women Give San Diego member Debi Spindelman was recently accepted to Duke's Sanford School and Center for International Development, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and Columbia's School of International Policy Administration to pursue her Masters in Public Administration in sustainable development practice this fall.

She is currently the Project Director at Outside the Lens. Through her work, she traveled to the Daraja Academy of Kenya, the first free all-girls secondary school in East Africa, where she taught a media literacy program to 52 students, including digital camera skills, visual training strategies, self-portraiture, elements of design, and self-reflective poetry.

She has chosen to study public policy as a means to share the visions and viewpoints of girls like the Daraja students-- recipients of international development program funds- with a broader audience. Her long-term goal is to return to San Diego after graduation to perform analysis and advisory work to philanthropic funds working in global development as it affects women, children, and other vulnerable populations.

You can see the Daraja’s student’s artwork as part of a traveling exhibition that will be unveiled at the University of San Diego in May.