Meredith Ainbinder ’04, deputy general counsel at Emerson College since 2016, provides wide-ranging counsel to the Boston-based educational institution, which also has facilities in Los Angeles and the Netherlands. Her areas of responsibility include education law, labor and employment, student affairs, intellectual property, business law, and more. Ainbinder is the immediate past president of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts and has held various committee chair posts in the Boston Bar Association. Her focus is on mentoring the next generation of women lawyers, helping women succeed as attorneys, bringing attention to sexual misconduct in the profession, and creating meaningful networks for in-house counsel.
Thanda Fields Brassard ’97, vice president and trust counsel at Fiduciary Trust Co. and vice president and general counsel at Fiduciary Trust Co. of New England, joined Fiduciary Trust in 2006. She was instrumental in setting up the 130-year-old private wealth management firm’s New Hampshire affiliate, which now holds over $1.6 billion in assets under her supervision. Brassard is on the boards of the Massachusetts nonprofits Ellie Fund, offering assistance to breast cancer patients, and the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Mission Hill, providing support to children with behavioral and mental health disabilities. She is president of Frederick E. Weber Charities, providing grants to human services organizations in Massachusetts.
Jane P. Kourtis ’89, associate general counsel at Bright Horizons, joined the company in 2002. She handles a wide array of business and operational legal matters, supporting the company’s growth from 200 child care locations to more than 1,000, and its addition of three new service lines: backup child and elder care, educational advising, and employee tuition assistance and loan repayment programs. Among her many community endeavors, Kourtis helped to establish a faith-based preschool, is the director of her church’s youth music program, and is an officer of her church’s women’s organization whose mission is to help the poor, aged, sick, and imprisoned.