*I do not represent businesses or business owners in worker co-op conversions. Information shared with me by businesses or business owners related to worker co-op conversions will not be considered confidential. You do not have a reasonable expectation of forming an attorney-client relationship with me.

I’m interested in using the law to transform existing relationships and the structures and narratives shaping them.

My practice of transactional law and policy work involves an interdisciplinary blend of philosophy, history, and sociology.

My focus areas are worker co-op conversions, housing co-ops and community land trusts, and the relationship between zoning law and family.

My worker co-op conversions practice situates employee self-purchase on a spectrum with slave self-purchase. It asks, "Is there an emergency for the employed that merits gaining freedom from the employment relationship by paying a business owner?" This is the same question chattel slavery abolitionists asked. The situations are similar, but the merits are different. What does that imply in terms of strategy for workers?

My housing co-op and community land trust work situates the recent proliferation of community land trusts in the context of mistrust of residents who converted limited equity housing cooperatives to market rate cooperatives throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It asks if there's a need for a hierarchical landlord-tenant or ground lessor / ground lessee relationship to enforce permanent affordability. It asks if community land trusts can ever be trusted to trust residents if they are tools to permanently avoid the need for trust.

My work on the relationship between zoning law and the private, nuclear family highlights how recent efforts to expand the definition of family for dwelling unit purposes exist along continued efforts to enforce prejudice against non-private (i.e. communal), group housing. It aims to create a legal strategy that promotes a built environment for all relationship types, not just relationships that mirror the nuclear family relationship.

States of Licensure

California

Credentials

B.A. Philosophy, B.A. Religion, Samford University, Birmingham, AL (2014)

J.D. with Social Justice and Public Interest Concentration, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (2019)

Equal Justice Works Fellow Sponsored by the eBay Foundation (Sept. 2019 - Sept. 2021)

Movement Law Lab, Negotiations for Movement Lawyers, virtual (Nov. 2023)

Law for Black Lives, Summer School, Jackson, MS (June 2025)

Presentations and Panels

Room for Everyone: Tearing Down Legal Barriers to Communal Housing, Community Living Wisdom Exchange, San Francisco, CA (Nov. 2025)

Community Land Trusts, Eviction, and Rent: Real Talk, California Community Land Trust Network Conference, Fresno, CA (Sept. 2025)

Ending Zoning’s Focus on the Family, Law Center MCLE Presentation (Aug. 2025)

Homes for All Kinds: Reshaping Zoning for Queer Family Forms, Queer Housing Summit, Fresno, CA (Aug. 2025)

Towards Worker-Focused Worker Co-op Conversions, Law Center MCLE Presentation (Aug. 2025)

Towards Worker-Focused Worker Co-op Conversions, California Center for Cooperative Development Conference, Davis, CA (May 2025)

Reimagining Property for Evolving Family Forms, Community Living Wisdom Exchange, San Francisco, CA (Dec. 2024)

Zoning Law & Communal Living, Queer Housing Summit, Fresno, CA (Aug. 2024)

Advising Tenants to Purchase Their Building, Law Center MCLE Presentation (Sept. 2020)

A Lawyer's Role in Business Valuation in Worker Co-op Conversions, Law Center Fellow's Presentation (July 2020)

Worker Co-op Conversions During COVID-19 for Business Owners, Law Center MCLE Presentation (Apr. 2020)

Worker Control as a Solution to Covid-19, Law Center MCLE Presentation (Apr. 2020)