Recognizing Biases, Assumptions and Stereotypes

Formerly a deputy public defender in Los Angeles County, Shapiro’s advanced skill set is only matched by his devoted work ethic, one that places his clients in the best position where they often obtain favorable results. Considered one of the top criminal defense attorneys in Los Angeles, Shapiro regularly trains new attorneys in the most effective approaches and methods to handling criminal law matters.

Shapiro is a certified criminal law specialist by the State Bar of California. He concentrates his practice on white and blue collar criminal defense. He serves as a CJA Federal Trial Panel attorney for the Central District of California. He aggressively, creatively, and successfully represents clients in a vast variety of state and federal criminal matters.

Clinical psychologist in private practice. Specialties include childhood trauma, high conflict divorce and infertility

Judge Holly J. Fujie, a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and the U.C. Berkeley School of Law, is a 2011 appointee to the Los Angeles Superior Court with a civil, independent calendar court in the Mosk Courthouse.  Prior to her appointment, Judge Fujie was a shareholder at the Los Angeles-based law firm Buchalter Nemer, and in 2008-2009 she was the third woman and the first Asian American to serve as President of the State Bar of California.  Judge Fujie is the Immediate Past President of the California Asian Pacific American Judges Association, Vice President of the NAPABA Judicial Council and Co-Chair of the MultiCultural Bar Alliance of Southern California.  Besides WLALA, Judge Fujie serves on the Boards of the Asian Pacific American Women Lawyers Alliance and Continuing Education of the Bar. She is a member of the American Law Institute and she serves on Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Judicial Advisory Committee for appointments in the Central District of California and on Governor Newsom’s Judicial Selection Advisory Committee for Los Angeles County. She has received a number of awards for service to the legal profession, including WLALA’s Distinguished Service Award and Ernestine Stahlhut Award, California Women Lawyers’ Joan Dempsey Klein Award, the National Association of Women Judges’ Joan Dempsey Klein Award, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award and the National Association of Women Lawyers M. Ashley Dickerson Diversity Award.  She lives in West Los Angeles with her husband, attorney Lee Cotugno.  They have two children, Sabrina, who is a Supervising Director for an animated series for Apple+, and Thomas, who is a 3L at U.C. Hastings College of the Law.

Commissioner Kendra Thomas serves as a family law commissioner in the Los Angeles
Superior Court, specifically at the Chatsworth Courthouse in Department F58. Her role
involves presiding over various family law matters. She assumed this position on February 20,
2024, as part of a judicial reassignment aimed at enhancing courtroom operations at the
courthouse. Additionally, Commissioner Thomas has a background as a Certified Family Law
Specialist and previously practiced at Thomas Law Offices, a firm she founded in 2007.

Jinna Kang is a Partner at Youngman Reitshtein, PLC, where she represents individuals in complex and high-stakes family law matters. She is a California Certified Family Law Specialist and is licensed to practice law in California, Washington, D.C., and Texas.

Licensed in 2007, Ms. Kang has devoted her practice exclusively to family law since 2011. Her work encompasses complex asset division, child custody, domestic violence, and cross-border family law matters. As a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL), she frequently advises clients on high-value property division, as well as the domestication, enforcement, and modification of foreign judgments and other international family law issues.

A native of Korea with strong professional ties to family law practitioners throughout Asia, Ms. Kang offers a unique cross-cultural and bilingual perspective in cases involving Korean law, language, and customs. She is also conversant in Chinese and Spanish, allowing her to serve a broad and diverse clientele in sophisticated family law matters.

Ms. Kang has moderated and served as a panelist on numerous programs addressing international, cultural, and immigration-related issues in family law for organizations including the American Bar Association, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Beverly Hills Bar Association, International Association of Korean Lawyers, California Lawyers Association, and the American Inns of Court. She has also served as an expert witness in cases involving the intersection of California and Korean family law and related cross-jurisdictional disputes.

Deeply engaged in the legal community, Ms. Kang serves on the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hills Bar Association, as a Trustee of Southwestern Law School, and as a Board Member of the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists (ACFLS) Foundation. She is also an Executive Committee Member of the American Inns of Court and the Family Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

With over fifteen professional memberships and active participation in international legal training programs, Ms. Kang continues to be recognized as a trailblazer and leader in the family law community.