Tirien Steinbach served for seventeen years as a lawyer, clinical supervisor, program director, and then executive director of the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), the community-based clinical program for Berkeley Law School and largest provider of free legal services and policy advocacy in Alameda County. As a lawyer at EBCLC, Tirien founded the Clean Slate Clinic, the nation’s first reentry clinic. During her 11-year tenure as executive director, Tirien oversaw the creation or expansion of EBCLC’s programs, including community economic justice, consumer justice, education advocacy, immigration, and youth defender clinics.

Tirien served for two years as the Chief Program Officer at the ACLU of Northern California. In this capacity, she provided support and guidance to the four programmatic departments: Legal & Policy, Communications, Organizing, and California Advocacy & Policy (statewide legislation). Tirien also conducts classes and trainings on increasing mindfulness and cultural responsiveness in the law and legal profession. In 2017, she launched the Coalition for Equity and Inclusion in Law (CCEIL), a Bay Area regional cohort of law and policy organizations dedicated to advancing greater cultural equity, inclusion, and diversity in the sector.

Tirien received her bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz and her law degree from Berkeley Law School (1999), where she served as president of the Berkeley Law Foundation and vice president of the Law Students of African Descent. She has been recognized for her social justice legal work, receiving both Equal Justice Works and Berkeley Law Foundation fellowships, the inaugural Thelton E. Henderson Social Justice Prize, the 2015 Berkeley Law Young Alumna Award, and the 2017 Alameda County Woman Lawyer of Distinction Award.

Tirien is a lifetime East Bay Area resident who loves cooking, crafting and hanging out with her family, and she will always cherish the memory of the night she got to dance on stage with Prince.