Sabrina Adler is a senior staff attorney and program director at ChangeLab Solutions, where she works on legal and policy issues related to chronic disease prevention, including food marketing to children and maternal and child health. Before joining ChangeLab Solutions, she was a staff attorney at the Child Care Law Center, where she assisted legal aid attorneys with child care cases and did policy work on health and obesity prevention in the child care setting, due process protections for parents with child care subsidies, and child care licensing standards. In addition, she received a Skadden Foundation Fellowship to found the San Francisco Medical-Legal Partnership (a collaboration between Bay Area Legal Aid and San Francisco General Hospital), in which she provided direct legal services to low-income pediatric patients and their families.  Her practice included advocacy in the areas of housing, health, public benefits, disability, education, and family law. Sabrina graduated from Brown University (magna cum laude) and Stanford Law School.

Lauren Brady is the Directing Attorney of the Statewide Education Rights Project at Public Counsel. The project focuses on using litigation, local and state policy change, direct service and community partnerships to move forward education reform in California. Prior to joining Public Counsel, Lauren was a deputy public defender and the director of the Legal Educational Advocacy Project (LEAP) at the Juvenile Division of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. LEAP provides legal and social work services in the areas of school discipline, special education, and truancy to juvenile clients of the Public Defender’s Office, in addition to training and policy advocacy. Lauren began her legal career at Legal Services for Children, a non-profit civil legal services organization in San Francisco, where she represented juvenile clients in the areas of child welfare, education, probate guardianship and immigration.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Juan Carlos earned both his B.A. and J.D. at Stanford. He currently works as a Program Manager on the Invest in Neighborhoods team at San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD). Prior to joining OEWD, he worked for more than 6 years as a Staff Attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), where he supported community development in disadvantaged unincorporated communities, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley. While at CRLA, he also taught environmental justice lawyering for two years as a Lecturer at Berkeley Law School. He is a founding board member of The Greenhouse Project.

Marisa Díaz is from the Bay Area and graduated from Pomona College in 2006. After college, she worked for Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP and for various nonprofits in the U.S., México and Spain on issues ranging from women’s reproductive rights to prisoners’ rights and immigrant domestic workers’ rights. During law school, Marisa participated in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and interned at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and the then Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center. After graduating from law school in 2013, Marisa clerked for Judge Michael D. Hawkins of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then worked as a fellow at Equal Rights Advocates. In December 2015, Marisa joined Legal Aid at Work (formerly, the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center) as a staff attorney in the National Origin & Immigrants’ Rights Program.

Sabrina Forte is a staff attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid’s Youth Justice Project, which provides civil legal assistance to youth who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, including those who have been involved in the delinquency or foster care systems.  Sabrina advocates for her clients across practices areas, including public benefits, foster care and legal permanency, housing, and education.  She trains and provides technical assistance to minor’s counsel, probation officers, social workers, youth homeless shelters, schools, and many other agencies to help them identify civil legal needs in their client population.  She also participates in local and statewide workgroups dedicated to improving service delivery to children in foster care, including juvenile justice-involved youth in foster care.  Sabrina is a graduate of Stanford Law School and obtained a Master’s Degree in education from Stanford University.  Prior to joining Bay Area Legal Aid, Sabrina clerked for Judge Richard Paez on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Maureen Keffer is a policy specialist in the Civil Rights Unit at the California Department of Social Services (CDSS). Her team ensures effective access and nondiscrimination for all applicants and recipients of benefits and services provided by CDSS and county welfare departments, including cash aid, food stamps, child welfare and adult protective services. She develops civil rights regulations and policy guidance and provides training and technical assistance to counties to strengthen civil rights protections for some of the state’s most vulnerable populations. She also plays a lead role in the Department’s efforts to incorporate racial equity principles and practices into our policy decisions and operations.

Shira Levine is a litigation and immigration staff attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood.  She represents low-income workers and tenants in affirmative cases in state and federal court, and represents immigrants in removal defense before the San Francisco immigration court and asylum office.  Previously, she worked as a Stanford Public Interest Law Fellow for the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center and as a judicial law clerk for Judge Harry Pregerson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  She received her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2012, where she participated in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and the Community Law Clinic.

Cindy C. Liou, Esq. is currently the Deputy Director of Legal Services at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a national non-profit working to provide legal counsel to unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children in the United States. Previously, she was the Director of the Human Trafficking Project at Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, where she also co-counseled several civil litigation cases on behalf of human trafficking survivors, and represented survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, and hate crimes.  She continues to provide consulting and training on topics ranging from human trafficking, domestic violence lethality, to best practices on how to collaborate in cross-disciplinary teams to support survivors of violence. She is also formerly the Co-Chair of the Policy Committee of the Freedom Network to Empower Trafficked and Enslaved Persons (USA), a network of over 40 individual and member agencies representing trafficking survivors, and the winner of the 2013 San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking Modern Day Abolitionist Award for Policy and Advocacy. Cindy is also the co-author of several articles and the second edition of the manual Representing Survivors of Human Trafficking.  Before working at API Legal Outreach, Cindy handled a variety of pro bono cases at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, ranging from asylum to police misconduct cases.  Cindy is a graduate from Stanford Law School and the University of Washington.

Kevin Lo is a staff attorney in the Immigrant Rights Program at Asian Law Caucus. He works with the elderly low-income community in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and represents incarcerated people in removal proceedings. Before ALC, he worked on counter-terrorism human rights issues with Reprieve in London, assisted LGBT refugees and asylum seekers with ORAM, and led labor campaigns in Southeast Asia and the American South with the United Auto Workers.

Nikki Marquez is a Law Fellow/Attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), where she contributes to manuals, practice advisories, and community resources, and engages in some of ILRC’s advocacy work. Recently, her work has focused on immigration enforcement, including community responses such as sanctuary resolutions and ordinances. Nikki is a recent SLS alum (Class of 2015), where she was a member of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and interned at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. Prior to law school, Nikki worked on anti-human trafficking policy and on issues related to the economic rights of survivors of domestic violence. Nikki likes to hike, play basketball, and hang out with her 9 month old son.

As Deputy Director of the City Energy Project at NRDC, Kimi Narita advances policies and programs that cut energy waste in large buildings and make American cities healthier and more prosperous through energy efficiency. Formerly, Kimi defended state renewable energy standards in Kansas and Missouri, represented NRDC at public utility commission proceedings in Illinois and Missouri, and supported Chicago’s energy efficiency initiatives. Prior to joining NRDC, Narita clerked for Justice Craig Stowers of the Alaska Supreme Court. She also worked at the Center for Ocean Solutions, crafting offshore oil drilling policy and regulatory recommendations for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Oil Drilling. She holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropological sciences and a master’s degree in environment and resources from Stanford University. She earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Jennifer Chang Newell is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, where she has practiced since 2004. Her work includes challenging state and local anti-immigrant ordinances, protecting the constitutional rights of immigrants to judicial review and due process, and combating discrimination and retaliation against immigrants. Newell is counsel in Arizona DREAM Act Coalition v. Brewer, a challenge to Arizona’s denial of driver’s licenses to young immigrant “DREAMers” granted federal permission to live and work in the U.S.; and in M.S.P.C. v. Johnson, a lawsuit enforcing the due process rights of Central American mothers and children detained at the Artesia federal detention facility in New Mexico. Her other cases have included Supremacy Clause challenges to immigration ordinances in Fremont, Nebraska, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Farmers Branch, Texas, and other states and localities across the country; litigation invalidating the Department of Homeland Security regulation concerning Social Security Administration “no-match” letters; and litigation upholding the validity of the San Francisco Municipal ID Ordinance.

Prior to joining the ACLU as a Skadden Fellow, Newell was a law clerk to Judge Marsha Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Yale College. Newell has published articles on immigrant workers’ rights and housing discrimination in the Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal, California Labor & Employment Law Review, and Stanford Law Review. Newell was named as one of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Best Lawyers Under 40 in 2014, and is the 2013 recipient of Stanford Law School’s Miles Rubin Public Interest Award. In January 2017, she was selected to serve a 3-year term as a Ninth Circuit Appellate Lawyer Representative.

Julia Rabinovich is an immigration staff attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza working on its detention team, where started she just last month.  Before that, she was a class action associate at Outten & Golden, a plaintiffs’ side employment law firm, for two and a half years.  Prior to working at O&G, Julia clerked on the Ninth Circuit for Judge Paez and at the Southern District of Texas for Judge Ellison.  In law school, she participated in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and interned at Planned Parenthood, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach.  She is looking forward to seeing many familiar faces and meeting everyone!

Sharon Terman is the Director of the Work and Family Program and a Senior Staff Attorney at Legal Aid at Work (formerly Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center) in San Francisco. She represents workers with family and medical leave claims as well as claims of pregnancy, gender, and disability discrimination. She provides legal advice to low-income workers, engages in community education, and participates in legislative advocacy to expand workers’ rights. She received her J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School and her B.A. with highest distinction from the University of California, Berkeley. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Richard A. Paez of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before joining Legal Aid at Work as a Skadden Fellow. She is the 2011 recipient of the Stanford Law School Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award, and was named a 2015 Northern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers.