Laura Bixby JD ’14 is currently a Senior Staff Attorney and Clinical Supervisor in the Housing Unit at East Bay Community Law Center, part of the clinical program at Berkeley Law. She has more than a decade of experience of providing zealous direct representation to clients in both the criminal and civil legal systems.

In her current role, Laura supervises law students in their representation of tenants throughout Alameda County. She defends tenants at every stage of eviction proceedings in state court, and she also represents tenants in administrative hearings before rent boards and public housing authorities. Laura has won victories, including a jury trial, for clients facing retaliatory evictions, substandard living conditions, and discrimination. She also counsels unrepresented individuals through tenants’ rights workshops and courthouse clinics.

Prior to joining EBCLC, Laura worked as a public defender at Orleans Public Defenders in New Orleans, where she represented clients charged with serious felonies from arrest through jury trial. As part of the office’s Special Litigation Unit, Laura also developed and litigated systemic challenges, including a public records lawsuit with the ACLU and SPLC concerning New Orleans’ network of real-time-monitored surveillance cameras. She successfully argued a case at the Louisiana Supreme Court that struck down a law criminalizing selling art outdoors as violating the First Amendment. After leaving the public defender’s office, Laura worked on impact litigation at Prison Law Office, challenging lack of medical care and disability accommodations in prisons throughout California.

Laura started her career as a federal law clerk to the Honorable Mary M. Schroeder of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is a graduate of Amherst College, where she earned a B.A. in Art and the History of Art and completed an honor’s thesis in studio film photography.