Associate General Counsel Samara Schwartz joined the ADA in July 2020. She is counsel to the ADA Foundation, the ADA’s affiliated 501(c)(3) charitable organization, and the ADA’s Department of Corporate Social Responsibility and Philanthropy, which is the ADA’s home for charitable work in the U.S. and abroad. Additionally, she advises two Board committees—the Budget & Finance Committee and the Business Innovation Committee—and two councils: the Council on Members Insurance and Retirement Programs and the Council on Communications. Samara also provides legal support on a variety of issues including employment matters and general corporate advice.
Samara has more than a decade of experience in-house with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Most recently, Samara served as the General Counsel of Hogsalt Hospitality, the parent company of 20+ restaurants with 700+ employees. Previously, Samara served as Senior Counsel at Morton Salt, the General Counsel of Abt Electronics, and as Counsel at the headquarters of the Better Business Bureaus (a 501(c)(6) organization), where, among other roles, she was counsel for the BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust, a 501(c)(3) education-focused foundation.
Samara earned her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College, where she majored in history. She was a 2016-2017 fellow with the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, an organization of 350+ corporations and law firms that promote diversity in the legal profession. Samara is admitted to practice in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.
Disclosures: None to report