Seth Jaffe

Seth Jaffe is Adjunct Professor of Law at Berkeley Law and at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Through May of 2023, Seth Jaffe was Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of Levi Strauss & Co., leading the global legal department in its support of businesses operating in over 110 countries. He was responsible for all aspects of legal, ethics and compliance, global security and resilience, including enterprise risk management, and governance matters. Seth acted as counselor to the board of directors and executive leadership and was a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team.  Seth also oversaw the Levi Strauss Foundation, whose mission is to bring pioneering social change.

Prior to joining Levi Strauss & Co. in 2011, Seth served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of specialty retailer Williams-Sonoma, Inc.  Before that, Seth was Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel of CareThere Inc., leading a broad range of business and legal areas for a healthcare technology company backed by Johnson & Johnson.
Seth began his career at the McCutchen Doyle law firm (now Morgan Lewis) in San Francisco. 

Seth has served on a number of non-profit boards, and currently serves on the boards of Hand in Hand and Mill Valley Philharmonic (where he is board president as well as timpanist).  He received degrees with honors from Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School.  In 2015, Seth was named Bay Area Corporate Counsel of the Year by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and the San Francisco Business Times.

Seth and his family live in Mill Valley, California.

• Governance
• Corporate law
• Intellectual property

• Corporate law and governance

• University of Michigan Law School, JD, 1980
• Brown University, AB in History and Political Science, 1977

• Adjunct Professor of Law, UC Berkeley
• Chief Legal Officer, Levi Strauss & Co.
• General Counsel, Levi Strauss & Co.
• General Counsel, Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
• Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel, CareThere, Inc.
• Attorney, McCutchen Doyle Brown & Enersen

• Bay Area Corporate Counsel of the Year, 2015