Thiru Vignarajah Email & Phone Number

Thiru Vignarajah is CEO of Capital Plus Financial, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in Baltimore. A native and resident of Baltimore, Thiru attended Woodlawn High School, Yale University, and Harvard Law School, where he was elected President of the Harvard Law Review. He then clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi and Justice Stephen Breyer. After then working at Arnold & Porter in DC, Thiru served as a federal prosecutor in Maryland and as chief of major investigations at the State's Attorney's Office for Baltimore City, before being named Deputy Attorney General for Maryland. A seasoned trial attorney, Thiru has prosecuted a number of complex, high-profile criminal cases in state and federal court. As Deputy Attorney General, Thiru was the lead author of statewide guidelines to end discriminatory profiling by police, making Maryland the first state in the country to issue such guidance. He was also responsible for post-conviction and appellate litigation in Adnan Syed v. Maryland. In addition, he led the drafting of a report by the Maryland Attorney General, "The State of Marriage Equality in America," which was cited by the Supreme Court in its landmark decision, Obergefell v. Hodges.Thiru has been praised for his commitment to public service by judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and commentators alike. When Thiru was named Deputy Attorney General for Maryland, the police commissioner in Baltimore called Thiru a "once-in-a-generation lawyer and leader" and credited his unit with tackling "the hardest cases against the city's worst criminals." He was selected by the Daily Record as VIP 40 under 40 in 2012, was named by Center Maryland as Lawyer of the Year in 2014, and was honored in 2015 by the US Attorney for Maryland for his prosecution of the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) gang in Baltimore. He has also received the student award for Outstanding Professor of the Year three years in a row at the University of Maryland School of Law, where he currently teaches law and education.