Clara Shin is a partner with Covington & Burling and co-chairs the firm’s global commercial litigation practice group. In the last few years alone, she obtained defense wins valued at over $3 billion in intellectual property, trade secret, and licensing disputes. Clara also developed the firm’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategic plan and vice-chaired the Pro Bono Committee.

Earlier in her career, Clara served in the federal government on two occasions. From 1992 to 1995, she was on the start-up team that launched the AmeriCorps national service program. In parallel, she codesigned a $1 billion HUD program to revitalize distressed public housing developments and a DoD program to assist communities affected by military downsizing. Clara subsequently was appointed as a White House Fellow and served from 1998 to 1999 in the White House Office of the Chief of Staff. Clara has also led international initiatives. In the early days of glasnost, she helped to design Tahoe-BaikalInstitute, an environmental institute in California and Siberia which launched in 1991. During this same time period, she was involved in establishing Earth Train, a youth-led program for environmental activists worldwide.

Clara’s board experience spans 25 years. In addition to the Rosenberg Foundation, she serves as a Director of the National Women’s Law Center and People for the American Way. Her prior board service includes the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, ACLU of Northern California, Asian Pacific Fund, National Partnership for Women and Families, and others. Clara earned her JD from Stanford Law School and clerked for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She received her BA from Smith College.