David Zapolsky

As Amazon’s Senior Vice President, Chief Global Affairs & Legal Officer, David Zapolsky manages a broad range of domestic and international legal, public policy, government relations, compliance, and regulatory affairs for the company.  Before assuming his current position, he served for more than 23 years in a variety of legal and policy roles at Amazon, including as General Counsel since 2012.  

Prior to joining Amazon in 1999, Zapolsky was a litigation partner in the Seattle offices of Dorsey & Whitney and Bogle & Gates.  He moved to Seattle in 1994 from New York, where he served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, focusing primarily on sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence prosecutions, and an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he practiced securities litigation and white collar defense.  He is a graduate of Berkeley Law and Columbia College.    

In addition to his work at Amazon, Zapolsky has taught law school seminars in Technology Law and Public Policy at Berkeley, the University of Washington, and Seattle University.  He is also active in several civic, educational, and legal organizations that, among other things, seek to promote diversity and pro bono work in the legal profession.  He has served as a Trustee of the King County Bar Foundation, a member of the Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) Washington State Advisory Committee, a corporate advisory member of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, a member of the Leaders Council for the Legal Services Corporation, and a Director of Seattle’s Alliance for Education, the Berkeley Law Alumni Association, and the University of Washington Foundation.  In 2013, he founded the Amazon legal department’s pro bono initiative, also known as the Amazon Justice League, which encourages and enables Amazon attorneys and legal professionals around the world to donate thousands of hours of pro bono legal work each year.