Biography
Stephanie is an experienced exempt organizations lawyer providing support to the foundation’s grantmaking and operations.
Before joining the foundation, Stephanie practiced law for 22 years at the San Francisco firm of Adler & Colvin, 17 as a principal. While there, she focused on the representation of nonprofits and their donors, with emphases on private foundations and international grantmaking. In addition to co-authoring several articles, she previously served for ten years as the exempt organizations editor of the Journal of Taxation, as an author of portions of Advising California Nonprofit Corporations (a publication of the Continuing Education of the Bar), and is a co-author of the third edition of Fiscal Sponsorship: 6 Ways To Do It Right (2019, Study Center Press).
Stephanie previously taught at the University of San Francisco’s Nonprofit Management program and has spoken at numerous conferences, including the Western Conference on Tax-Exempt Organizations, Georgetown University’s Representing & Managing Tax-Exempt Organizations, PEAK Grantmaking, the CalCPA not-for-profit organizations conference, and the meeting of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the American Bar Association’s Tax Section.
Before working at Adler & Colvin, Stephanie practiced general business law and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Sidney R. Thomas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Stephanie earned her A.B. in philosophy from Princeton University, cum laude, and her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as an associate editor of the California Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. She is admitted to practice law in California.
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