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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 

  • 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 Empowerment

Honor the hands that harvest your crops.

Dolores Huerta

Services:​

  • Know Your Rights workshops and resources

  • Investigative civil rights violations

  • Civic engagement and voter outreach 

  • Voting/Human Rights community meetings

  • Harness existing resources into your community 

  • Channel criminal justice tax into violence prevention 

  • Train leaders to engage key stakeholders

  • Collaborate with organizations and advocates 

  • Mediation and Dispute Resolution

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Community lawyering is community empowerment. The goal is simple: to educate people on their rights and to listen and be prepared. Persistence and education is everything. Once people become educated on their own rights and can see the structures that either improve or impair their freedoms, they can begin to question. The first question is always: Is it worth it? Is it worth making demands? 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. Community empowerment is individual and collective, never a one way street with one leader and all followers. As my mentors, Joaquin Avila and Frances 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. Empowering communities means engaging youth: empowering future leaders. We educate not to horde knowledge but to teach. All of this takes time but demands your voice today. 

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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