Managing Attorney

C. Genevieve Jenkins is the founder and managing attorney of Excelsis Law, P.C. Prior to founding Excelsis Law, P.C., 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, P.C. 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’s commitment to working people’s issues is a lifelong pursuit. As the son of a Teamster and an office worker, he was raised in a working-class union household in Southern California. He 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, where he specialized in labor, employment, and civil rights law. During his second year at USC, he served as research assistant to the great constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky. He also taught journalism courses at USC-Annenberg School for Communication.

Before law school, Mr. Saldana earned a B.A. at University of California-Santa Cruz. After graduating with a Journalism degree, he worked in television news as a producer, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Newscast. He later earned a Master’s degree 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. He also served as a communications advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia and led a successful public information reform effort in that country’s 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.

photograph of the three attorneys of Excelsis Law, P.C.

Litigation Assistant

Zara Davis, Litigation Assistant at Excelsis Law, P.C., is an experienced paralegal and litigation specialist.

Ms. Davis is a certified paralegal with a background in both the entertainment and legal industries. Ms. Davis received her undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Kansas in 2019. During college, she worked in the entertainment industry, and continued that path after graduation in the Kansas City area as a production manager at music venues.

In 2021, Ms. Davis obtained her paralegal certificate and began working at a courthouse under a judge handling a civil and domestic caseload. Ms. Davis managed the Court's schedule, edited court documents, worked with attorneys and self-represented individuals, completed legal research, and assisted with jury trials. She was employed there for 1.5 years, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue law in a larger region. She has been employed with Excelsis Law, P.C. since August of 2022.