Managing Attorney

C. Genevieve Jenkins is the founder and managing attorney of Excelsis Law, P.C. Prior to founding Excelsis Law, P.C. in 2018, Ms. Jenkins amassed nearly a decade of experience litigating with and against some of the toughest legal professionals throughout California. She founded Excelsis Law to focus on employment and housing litigation on behalf of employees and tenants. Ms. Jenkins made tremendous sacrifices early on in her career to be able to gain expertise in these crucial areas of law that often implicate important civil rights issues.

In her employment practice, Ms. Jenkins represents employees in harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and wage-and-hour matters on an individual and class-action basis. In her housing practice, she represents tenants in civil lawsuits against landlords for issues including negligence, violations of the warranty of habitability, discrimination, and harassment.

Ms. Jenkins started her legal career as a litigator at Latham & Watkins – a highly selective corporate law firm with thousands of attorneys in offices worldwide that was founded in Los Angeles.

After 2.5 years at Latham, Ms. Jenkins was ready to follow her passion by advocating for individuals who found themselves in dire straits. From 2013-2014, she worked in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a voluntary legal advisor at Lawyers for Human Rights and as a law clerk to South African Constitutional Court Justice Johann van der Westhuizen. The South African Constitutional Court is equivalent to the United States Supreme Court, and is highly selective in choosing its clerks.

Thereafter, Ms. Jenkins sought to pursue her passion for civil rights advocacy closer to home, and so returned to Los Angeles, where she worked for several years with two of the best public-interest law firms for tenants’ rights and obtained significant experience in employment litigation at leading employee-side firms.

Education

Queen Mary College, University of London, LL.M., Public International Law, merit

William & Mary Law School, J.D., law review, Moot Court

McGill University, B.A.

Partner

Zainah Alfi, a partner at Excelsis Law, P.C., is a Los Angeles native who pursued law to ensure that all people have a voice and access to justice. Ms. Alfi represents employees in all aspects of employment litigation, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, wage & hour violations, and whistleblower protection. In addition to litigating employment cases, Ms. Alfi represents tenants in affirmative housing cases premised on, among other things, landlords’ breaches of the warranty of habitability, negligence, harassment, retaliation, and discrimination.

Prior to joining Excelsis Law in January 2019, Ms. Alfi was a litigation attorney at a leading tenants' rights organization in Los Angeles. There, she defended tenants throughout Los Angeles County, helping resolve cases in tenants’ favor through both litigation and alternative dispute resolution.

After this, Ms. Alfi gained experience in the business world as a consultant for a startup company she led from concept to launch, managing all aspects of the business. Ms. Alfi obtained a unique perspective on employee-employer dynamics, as well as the real-life implications of employee agreements. It was in this role that Ms. Alfi recognized and first developed her passion for advocating for employees.

Ms. Alfi is a graduate of UCLA School of Law where she studied Critical Race Studies, and founded the UCLA Law chapter of the Iraqi Refugee Project. During law school, Ms. Alfi was a judicial extern for the Honorable Jay Ghandi, United States Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California, and a summer law clerk with the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. She earned her undergraduate degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at USC.

Ms. Alfi is fluent in English, Spanish, and Arabic.

Education

UCLA School of Law, J.D., Productions Editor for the Journal of Islamic & Near Eastern Law; Articles Editor of the Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs

University of Southern California, B.A.

Counsel

Dave Saldana, counsel at Excelsis Law, P.C., is an employment law specialist. Mr. Saldana has spent his career as an attorney defending workers in wrongful termination, wage & hour, discrimination, retaliation, and whistleblower cases. Mr. Saldana, son of a Teamster and an office worker, considers his commitment to working people’s issues a lifelong pursuit, and began his legal career representing union members at a labor-side firm.

Mr. Saldana attended law school at University of Southern California Gould School of Law, specializing in labor, employment, and civil rights law. During law school, he served as research assistant to the great constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, and taught journalism courses at USC-Annenberg School for Communication.

Before law school, Mr. Saldana earned a B.A. in Journalism at University of California-Santa Cruz. He thereafter worked in television news as a producer, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Newscast. He later earned a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University, and worked for MTV News and New York 1 news.

Mr. Saldana's career has afforded him many diverse experiences, including as communications director for the United Electrical Workers Union and Free Press policy think tank, Senior Advisor to the National Security and Human Rights Campaign, and Senior Fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy. In the Republic of North Macedonia, he also served as a communications advisor to the Prime Minister and led a successful public information reform effort in the Office of the Public Prosecutor.

Mr. Saldana is active in international human rights issues and is an advisor to Bellwether International, a global NGO dealing with genocide.

Education

University of Southern California School of Law, J.D.

Columbia University, M.S.

University of California, Santa Cruz, B.A.

Counsel

photograph of attorney Ingrid M. Arriaga

Ingrid M. Arriaga, counsel at Excelsis Law, P.C., is a housing law specialist.

Born in Guatemala, Ms. Arriaga immigrated to the San Fernando Valley with her family at a young age. Growing up in an immigrant family motivated Ms. Arriaga to devote her career to practicing law on behalf of underserved communities.

Prior to joining Excelsis Law, P.C., Ms. Arriaga dedicated more than a decade of her career to working for top public-interest law firms, defending tenants in eviction proceedings and advocating for tenants’ rights in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. She maintains that public-interest lens in the work she now does at Excelsis Law, seeking to represent the most vulnerable tenants, or those who have been egregiously wronged.

Along with her public-interest ideals, Ms. Arriaga has extensive litigation experience, including as lead counsel and second chair in numerous jury trials throughout Los Angeles County, one of which resulted in a published decision at the appellate level (Guttman v. Chiazor (2017) 15 Cal.App.5th Supp. 57). She has also trained and supervised several teams of attorneys in housing law litigation.

At Excelsis Law, Ms. Arriaga represents tenants in affirmative housing cases based on landlords’ breaches of the warranty of habitability, harassment, retaliation, negligence and discrimination, among other things.

Ms. Arriaga is fluent in Spanish and English.

Education

Whittier Law School, J.D., Trial Advocacy Honors Board

California State Long Beach, B.A.

Litigation Assistant / Paralegal

Lauren Ruggiero is the litigation assistant / paralegal at Excelsis Law, P.C. An experienced paralegal, Lauren has previously worked in family law and employment law firms.