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PRACTICE AREAS

VOTING RIGHTS

Local elections are seeds that can grow into forests of protection and refuge.

 Services:

  • Investigating Voter Suppression

  • Federal Voting Rights Act  - Section 2; First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment; Fifteenth Amendment Litigation

  • Washington State Voting Rights Act Compliance and Investigation

  • Local Elections Canvassing Review Board Monitoring

  • Community Outreach Voting Rights Restoration 

  • Free legal consultations for local candidates of color re: campaign and voter education advocacy 

  • Public Policy and Legislative Consulting 

  • Voting Rights Seminars & Community Meetings

  • Mobilizing the private Bar to defend our right to vote

 

I have been fighting to protect our fundamental right to vote since the age of 15 when I served as the first youth commissioner on my hometown's Human Rights Commission. I have worked with formerly incarcerated to advocate for restoration of the right to vote and personally testified before House and Senate Committee hearings on this issue. My passion for voting rights lead to law school where I was honored to receive the mentorship and friendship of national Voting Rights leader, Joaquin G. Avila.

I have studied the aspirations and limitations of the federal Voting Rights Act and the capacity for states to serve an incubators to enact legislation to protect our right to vote.  Joaquin Avila was the chief architect of the California Voting Rights Act, which became the model for the Washington Voting Rights Act. My work honors his legacy. My approach is to empower community monitoring to ensure federal and state voting rights compliance and inspire voters and candidates to organize. 

HUMAN RIGHTS

"The most important question in the world is,

'Why is the child crying?'"

Alice Walker
 

  Services:​

  • Mobile Legal Clinic services for institutions, prisons and detention sites 

  • Presentations on the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to organizations and schools

  • Immigration Detention Inspections under Flores Agreement

  • Bond hearings

  • Asylum and Immigration referrals

  • Advocacy for prisoners and psychiatric patients

  • Know Your Rights workshops and resources

  • Investigative interviews for media 

 

As a young girl, I visited the death camps of the Holocaust in Germany and Poland and saw the direct connection to America's history of slavery and genocide. I have spent significant time in Ireland, Japan, Hungary, Germany, Spain, and Mexico studying political history and democracy.  I have extensive personal experience and background advocating for the human rights of those who are institutionalized. In law school, I interviewed victims of human rights violations and supported litigation in the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. In August, 2018, I was selected to work with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law to interview separated children and unaccompanied minors seeking asylum and conduct a site inspection in compliance with the Flores Settlement. For two decades, I worked to undo institutionalized white supremacy within public education and demand that a just education system means access to information. Prior to law, I focused my human rights work on the seeds of society: anti-bias and anti-racist education with young children which translates to fostering a disposition toward activism, compassion and empathy. My experience as a mother and a lifelong child advocate informs my legal practice and my focus on human rights.

COMMUNITY 
LAWYERING

Without seeking power, 

we become truly powerful.

Thich Nhat Hanh
 

  Services:​​

  • Harness resources into your community  

  • Train leaders to engage key stakeholder

  • Collaborate with local and national organizations and advocates

  • Take your lead and develop partnerships  

  • Mediation and Dispute Resolution

  • Know Your Rights workshops

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As a community lawyer, I educate people on their rights, listen to their stories, and provide pragmatic steps forward. Persistence and education is everything. Once we become educated and can see the structures that either improve or impair our freedoms, we can begin to question. The first question is always: Is it worth it? Is it worth standing up? Sometimes there is no question because the situation demands action.

 

When you are ready, I am ready to stand with you. I am ready to bring resources and advocacy to your community. Empowerment is collective, never a one way street with one leader and all followers. As my mentors, Joaquin G. Avila and Frances B. North, passed down: the most brilliant idea and strategy can come from the least experienced person in the room. I don't practice or support hierarchical models. 

 

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INSPIRE  
YOUTH
CIVIC 
ENGAGEMENT

The sound of your own voice

will govern your life.

gina Breedlove

  Services:​​​ 

  • Presentations to 4th-12th graders 

  • Civic engagement and youth voter registration/outreach 

 

An educated body politic benefits everyone. Students who take courses on civics and voting are far more likely to vote when they turn 18. In 2016, only 39% of young voters (18-29) turned out to vote. In 2020, 50% of young voters turned out to vote. The time is now to build momentum and mobilize young voters. 

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Strengthening communities means engaging youth and inspiring future leaders. We educate not to horde knowledge but to teach.

 

I teach young people about the historical and present-day struggle for equal voting rights in order to 1) foster gratitude for those who came before us, who laid the groundwork and 2) inspire future generations to vote, invest and engage in a true multiracial democracy. 

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Drawing from my own voting rights cases, I provide real-life examples of current voter suppression and how voters are fighting for their right to vote. All lectures are age appropriate. 

 

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CONTRACTS

  Services:​

  • Business Startup

  • Contract Negotiations and Mediation

  • Contract breach, fraud, defamation (state, federal, Canada, EU and UK claims)

  • Anti-Discrimination Policies 

  • Review of Business Contracts

  • Pre-injury Release Forms

  • Art & Entertainment Business Contracts

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Ethical principles of justice easily transfer into business.  I read the fine print, inform you of your rights, listen to all parties, brainstorm options and solutions and draft accordingly.  As an author, poet, martial artist, and song-writer, I especially value protection of the arts and our First Amendment right to freedom of expression and information. 

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