Debra Cafaro

Debra A. Cafaro received her B.A. in government economics from the University of Notre Dame in 1979 and her J.D. in 1982 from the University of Chicago Law School. During Law School, she was the research assistant for Edward H. Levi, the former President of the University and Attorney General of the United States. She had summer associate stints at the law firms Jones Day in Cleveland (1980), Debevoise & Plimpton in New York (1981) and Cleary Gottlieb in New York (1982). In 1982–83, Cafaro served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. J. Dickson Phillips, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. From 1983 to 1997, Cafaro practiced real estate, corporate and finance law, Cafaro also taught real estate transactions and finance as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School from 1988 to 1992. She joined Ambassador Apartments Inc. (NYSE:AAH), a multifamily REIT, as president and a director, in 1997 where she helped sell the company.

Cafaro was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a working class Catholic family. She has one younger sister. Her mother, Dee Francis, was first-generation Lebanese who grew up in an Arabic speaking household in Washington, Pennsylvania. Her father was born in Pittsburgh to a first-generation Italian family with 13 children. His immigrant father and mother owned restaurants and bars; her father worked as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service. Cafaro married Terrance K. Livingston in 1983. They have two adult children and reside in suburban Chicago.