The Forum featuring Sonya Pfeiffer
THE FORUM
FEATURING Sonya Pfeiffer
JUNE 23 2022 | 7PM | IN-PERSON EVENT
Please join us for the June 23rd, 2022 gathering of The Forum featuring Sonya Pfeiffer on "Art, Justice & The Law." Or "Confessions of a Civil Rights Attorney: Everything I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from Buying an Art Gallery!" Sonya Pfeiffer is a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an award-winning journalist and podcaster. and owner and creative director of Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art.
In this forum, we will explore how narrative artwork informs ideas of justice. Sonya will share her professional journey from investigative reporter and documentarian to civil rights and criminal defense attorney to owner and creative director of a contemporary art gallery. She will share how she uses the arts to address pressing societal issues that underlie her legal work — from confronting cognitive bias to unearthing historical narratives that shape our beliefs. Sonya will note how our subconscious pattern-making influence how we categorize right and wrong, good and bad, friend and foe. We'll consider what her insights might mean for the times we are living in.
Sonya Pfeiffer is a partner at Charlotte-based Rudolf Widenhouse, where she counsels clients in the U.S. She is also of counsel to Brauti Thorning in Toronto, Canada, where she consults on complex, high-conflict civil and criminal cases. Previously Sonya worked in the business litigation division of Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge and Rice. She began her legal career in the Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s Office, where she served in both the Misdemeanor and Felony Drug Unit.
She and her husband, David Rudolf, co-host Abuse of Power, a Webby Award winning podcast that spotlights injustices in the criminal legal system.
Sonya is also the owner and creative director of Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art. She leads the gallery’s strategic planning and programming. Sonya is committed to representing artists who create challenging, thought-driven work that addresses relevant issues in our global society, as well as artists who embrace beauty, the power of color, texture and gesture, and who understand art’s value in allowing us all space to escape.
In addition to her work in the law and the arts, Sonya is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She spent more than a decade as a television news reporter in Raleigh, Boston, Omaha and New York. She also covered major international stories while based in Paris, France, including the Yitzhak Rabin assassination in Tel Aviv and the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in Paris.
Connect. Consider. Ignite. The program runs from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM including time for conversation, connections, and Q&A.
The Forum has a three-part structure:
• First third: Participants connect and build relationships in small break-out groups prompted by a question;
• Middle third: Participants consider a presentation that ends with the speaker posing a community-facing question;
• Final third: Participants discuss the question, igniting new ideas and interactions.
THE HUMANITIES | Languages | Literature | History | Philosophy | Religion | And More!
Participate in the important questions of our time. The Forum is a conversation and speaker series that brings people together to explore challenges and opportunities that affect human flourishing through the lens of the humanities and civic imagination.
