Thiru Vignarajah

Thiru Vignarajah is Managing Partner of the Baltimore Office of Sanford Heisler Sharp.

At Sanford Heisler Sharp, Thiru’s practice has focused on civil rights, crime victims’ rights, and class action litigation. Before joining Sanford Heisler Sharp, Thiru served as a Litigation Partner at DLA Piper in Baltimore, and as Chief Executive Officer of Capital Plus Financial, a community development financial institution (CDFI).

Thiru earned degrees from Yale University and Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and served as President of the Harvard Law Review. Following law school, Thiru clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer. Thiru is a member of the Maryland bar.

He previously served as a federal and city prosecutor in his beloved hometown of Baltimore, and later as Maryland Deputy Attorney General. In the AG’s Office, Thiru was lead author of a report on marriage equality that was cited in the Supreme Court opinion affirming same-sex marriage as a fundamental right, and of a first-in-the-nation memorandum on ending discriminatory racial profiling by state law enforcement. Thiru has written regularly about local and national legal and civil rights issues for publications including The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He edited and wrote the introduction for Breaking the Promise of Brown: The Resegregation of America’s Schools, the full-text publication of Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, the 2012 Supreme Court decision that went against the legacy of racial integration of public schools established by the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

When Thiru is not lawyering, he enjoys playing all sports and watching the Orioles, Ravens, and college basketball.