Steve D’Amore serves as Chairman of Winston & Strawn LLP, a global law firm with attorneys across the United States, Europe, and South America. He leads the firm alongside a diverse leadership team whose members remain actively engaged in legal practice. Steve is responsible for leading the firm’s global strategy and growth and overseeing operations, performance, and talent. The firm emphasizes legal excellence, uncompromising client service, internationalism, expanded access to opportunity, and a strong commitment to pro bono work and corporate social responsibility. Under his leadership, Winston & Strawn is poised to combine with Taylor Wessing’s UK‑led business to form Winston Taylor, creating a premier transatlantic law firm of more than 1,400 lawyers operating from 20 cities.

An accomplished trial lawyer, Steve advises clients on complex business disputes in state and federal courts nationwide, as well as in U.S. and international arbitration forums. His practice spans commercial litigation, product liability, tax disputes, and other high-stakes business matters.

With more than 30 years of experience, he has represented clients in complex litigation and jury trials throughout the country. He counsels organizations operating across a broad range of industries, with particular focus on life sciences, financial services, professional services, and agribusiness.

Steve has received numerous professional accolades from leading legal publications and organizations, including:

• Benchmark Litigation
• The Legal 500
• The Best Lawyers in America
• Lawdragon
• Crain’s Chicago Business
• Latin Lawyer 250

A dedicated advocate for community service, Steve has long supported access to education. As an alumnus of DePaul University College of Law, he and his wife, Kim D’Amore, made the charter gift establishing the First Generation in Law Scholars Program in 2022. The program provides Chicago-area college students with a comprehensive introduction to the legal profession. Steve was elected to the Board of Trustees of DePaul University in July 2025.

He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and on the governing board of Gilda’s Club Chicago.

Born in Chicago to parents who emigrated from Argentina, Steve spent part of his childhood in Buenos Aires before returning to Chicago during his early school years. He maintains family ties in both Argentina and Europe.

Sally Bergmann Hardesty is a corporate partner and a member of Debevoise’s Investment Management Group. Her practice focuses on advising sponsors of private equity funds, including buyout, venture, real estate and credit opportunities funds. Mrs. Hardesty’s recent experience includes acting for clients such as Blackstone Multi-Asset Investing, Breakthrough Properties, Catalio Capital Management, Kelso & Company, Morgan Stanley, Odyssey Investment Partners, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Symbiotic Capital, TPG and Tishman Speyer.

Mrs. Hardesty is recommended by Chambers Global (2025) and Chambers USA (2025), where clients note that she is “extremely responsive and she offers strong advice.” She is also said to be “very sharp, practical” and “a tremendous legal adviser” who is “thoughtful, commercial and solution-oriented.” She has received further praise for her “unparalleled” client service, with sources saying that she is “very quick and knowledgeable” and “she always has her finger on the pulse.” She has also been named a Rising Star by Law360 (2023) and listed as a Rising Star for Investment Funds by IFLR1000 (2022). 

Mrs. Hardesty is a co-author of “Expect Fundraising Market To Grow More Competitive,” Law360 (August, 2022). She is also the author of “The Application of Conduit Theory in Interest Rate Swap Transactions: Schering-Plough Corporation v. United States,” 63 Tax. L. 437 (2010).

From 2009 to 2011, she served as a member of The Tax Lawyer.

Mrs. Hardesty joined Debevoise in 2011. She received a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2011, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008. She is admitted to the New York Bar. To learn more about Debevoise’s Inclusion initiatives please click here.

Cristina M. Rodríguez is the Sol and Lillian Goldman Dean and Professor of Law at Yale Law School and faculty co-director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership. Her career spans more than 25 years in academia, public service, and the legal profession. Dean Rodríguez holds the distinction of being the first Hispanic tenured professor and first Dean of Yale Law School.

Rodríguez is a widely recognized scholar whose research and teaching focus on constitutional law and theory, administrative law, and immigration law and policy. She has authored numerous academic articles and essays published in the Yale Law Journal and the Harvard Law Review, as well as myriad other scholarly journals, edited volumes, and general circulation publications. Rodríguez has also been a sought-after expert by major media outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Her recent work includes a series of empirically informed papers exploring accountability and policymaking within administrative agencies, particularly in the context of major developments in administrative law and the expansion of presidential power. She is also the co-author, with Adam B. Cox, of The President and Immigration Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), which examines two centuries of presidential influence over U.S. immigration policy. Legal scholars have described the book as a “remarkable scholarly achievement” that combines historical breadth with detailed institutional and legal analysis.

Rodríguez taught at NYU School of Law from 2004 to 2012 and has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia. She joined the faculty at Yale Law School in 2013 and was named the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law in 2014.

Rodríguez has also held significant public service roles. From 2011 to 2013, she served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, one of the highest honors given to employees in the Department of Justice, as well as recognition from the White House for her outstanding work. In 2021, she was appointed by the president to co-chair the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Her contributions to scholarship and public life have earned numerous honors. Rodríguez was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2020 and serves on the Council of the American Law Institute and the Administrative Conference of the United States. She received the Yale Law Women Excellence in Teaching Award in 2020 in recognition of her commitment to teaching and mentorship.

Rodríguez earned her B.A. in history from Yale College in 1995. She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where she received a master of letters in modern history in 1998. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2000. After law school, Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ryan Alvarez leads the Legal Studio at Gensler, the world’s largest architecture and design firm, and was appointed General Counsel in 2023. In this role, he sets the strategic direction for the firm’s legal function while empowering colleagues across the organization to do their best work in advancing Gensler’s mission of improving the world through the power of design. His practice focuses on corporate governance, lease transactions and real estate strategy, employment and compliance matters, intellectual property, and international and domestic architectural licensure.

Ryan works closely with the firm’s design technology, data platform, and IT leaders to address emerging legal and strategic questions related to artificial intelligence and its impact on the architecture and design industry, helping position the firm to responsibly harness new technologies in support of creativity and innovation.

Earlier in his career, Ryan represented operating companies, private equity firms, and institutional lenders in domestic and cross-border acquisitions, secured lending, joint ventures, and hospitality transactions, as well as complex real estate matters.

Ryan is currently on the Board of AWOKE, an organization dedicated to community development projects, arts and athletics programming and cultural events to empower youth and young adults to become local leaders and Free 2 Be Me, an organization dedicated to providing equal opportunities in the arts and dance for people with disabilities. He has spent his career supporting organizations like these that support inclusive and culturally focused youth programming.

Ryan earned his J.D. from American University and his B.A. in Political Science from Yale University.

He is recognized for his leadership at the intersection of law, design, and emerging technology, and for his commitment to fostering innovation, collaboration, and community impact.