Workplace Advocate: How to Counter Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism at Work (CLE)

Mark Donig is an attorney in Washington, D.C., whose practice fuses international transactions, commercial diplomacy, venture capital, and immigration.  Mark also serves as a Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

In addition to his corporate work, Mark has co-led or advised on multiple operations to defend dissidents and secure the release of hostages from Iran, Uganda, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Gaza and elsewhere. Mark is a two-time recipient (2017 and 2019) of The Certificate of Special Recognition from the Office of the Speaker of the House for his humanitarian and diplomatic work in the Middle East and Africa.

Mark serves as board member of the National Library of Israel and the James W. Foley Memorial Foundation, and Regional President of United Hatzalah’s Board for Northern California. He is the co-founder of the African Middle Eastern Leadership Project (AMEL). Finally, Mark serves as Global Ambassador for the ADIR Challenge, as well as on the advisory board of the Future Resilience Fund and the Helen Diller Berkeley Institute of Jewish Law and Israel Studies (UC Berkeley School of Law). Mark holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, an M.A. from Reichman University, and a B.A. (Public Policy) from Stanford University.

Sara Wyn Kane one of the founding partners at Valli Kane & Vagnini LLP (“VKV”), has devoted over twenty (20) years of her legal career fighting for her clients Civil Rights. Ms. Kane honed her litigation skills while working as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the Manhattan Trial Unit for the City of New York.  While defending the City’s employees and the City itself, Ms. Kane conducted and defended hundreds of depositions, participated in extensive motion practice, pre-trial and trial work.

Following her time at Corporation Counsel, Ms. Kane represented plaintiffs in employment discrimination disputes while working for a NY civil rights litigation firm. Ms. Kane supervised a team of attorneys in the prosecution and settlement of numerous mass action race, gender and age discrimination cases involving thousands of plaintiffs, resulting in millions of dollars in settlements for her clients. Since forming VKV Ms. Kane has focused her practice on the negotiation, mediation and litigation of individual as well as complex mass, class and/or collective actions primarily in the areas of employment discrimination, sexual harassment and hostile work environment, wage and hour violations and whistleblower/Qui Tam cases.

Ms. Kane has been co-lead counsel in a number of mass/class/collective action cases against a wide variety of national and international companies throughout the country. These include but are not limited to: representing a class of women in a Hostile Work Environment and Gender Discrimination action against Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp., (settled $7.15M in DCD); represented Parking Production Assistants against numerous major film and television companies, including HBO, Warner Brothers, ABC, NBCUniversal, SONY, FOX, CBS (FLSA & NYLL claims settled for a combined total of $30M-SDNY); represented workers in an environmental racism case against Sara Lee ($4M, EDTX); represented Assistant Store Managers against Marshalls (TJX) in a wage and hour misclassification case (Training Claims Settled- $4,750,000, ASM case settled for $31,500,000) -DCMA); represented managers in a misclassification case against Panda Express (settled – SDNY) and Allstate Insurance (ERISA, Breach of Contract & Age Claims-resolved – EDPA).

Born and raised in London, Steven built a career in technology, solving large scale IT and Cyber Security challenges. While at Amazon, he founded their Jewish Employee Group, igniting his passion for building Jewish communities and educating others about Jewish identity.

In 2022, Steven co-founded JewishERGs, now the world’s largest network of Jewish Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders. The organization helps establish and grow Jewish ERGs globally, fostering inclusion in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

In 2024, Steven left his technology career behind to focus full-time on JewishERGs. Since then, he has created and led two trips to Israel, partnered with Clal on groundbreaking research into Jewish workplace experiences, and has built a thriving global community of Jewish leaders.

Robert Pitkofsky serves as Section Chief for the Office of the New York State Attorney General. He represents five New York State Department of Health owned and operated hospitals and nursing homes in state supreme and surrogate courts across New York. Earlier this year, Robert was proud to initiate OAG’s first ever Jewish heritage celebration.

Robert has served as inside and outside corporate and litigation counsel, servicing clients in a wide range of practice areas including representing corporate and not-for-profit clients in employment discrimination and wage & hour matters. He also previously worked as the assistant general counsel at the Anti-Defamation League, currently serves on his synagogue’s board of trustees, and was awarded Israel Bonds’ Lion of Judah award. He is a former chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Rockland County (NY).

Robert earned a JD from Rutgers University School of Law, a BA from Binghamton University and in May, he expects to complete his MPA from the University at Albany.

Corena G. Larimer joined ADL in 2024, leveraging her experience navigating complex legal issues in high-stakes litigation and regulated industries to expand ADL’s litigation practice. As ADL’s Associate Counsel for National Litigation, Corena is instrumental in the organization’s growing initiative to hold businesses and organizations accountable in court for discriminatory business and employment practices. She is also central to ADL’s litigation efforts combatting hate and antisemitism in schools, including providing pro bono legal assistance to students and families through the K-12 Antisemitism Legal Line and Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL) with a network of law firms and partner organizations.  

Prior to joining ADL, Corena developed a deep expertise in the life sciences industry as in-house and outside litigation counsel, playing significant roles in trial, regulatory, briefing, litigation coordination, and product launch teams. She has handled all phases of civil litigation and earned recognition for her expertise in complex legal analysis and briefing. She has also served as amicus counsel to national and state healthcare professional associations in appeals with industry-wide impact. She graduated from Oberlin College and earned her law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. 

As General Counsel and part of the Chief Legal Office, Jane Pollack leads the team that is focused on day-to-day legal operations, working to help ADL meet its objectives while mitigating legal risk.

Prior to joining ADL in 2024, Jane held senior legal roles at Fanatics Betting and Gaming – the online and retail sports betting subsidiary of Fanatics – and Uber, where she was an Associate General Counsel. She also held various legal roles at Citi. Jane started her career as an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

Jane was a James Kent Scholar at Columbia Law School and received her BA from Wesleyan University.