Public Counsel’s 2026 Policy Agenda
Many of the harms experienced by our clients stem from deep-rooted structural injustice. In addition to providing direct services to individual clients, we work to change the systems that produce these harms. In deep collaboration with the communities most impacted by systemic oppression, we transform laws, policies, procedures, investments, narratives, and power structures to advance racial, gender, and economic justice, and to promote equity and opportunity.
As part of our comprehensive systems change strategy, Public Counsel advances a policy agenda that is uniquely informed and strategically sound, based on internal subject-matter expertise, our client relationships, and community lawyering. We intentionally engage at multiple scales—advancing policy agendas at the city, county, state, and federal governments—while drawing from a wide range of advocacy tactics and strategies.
At every level of government that Public Counsel works, we deliberately integrate community leadership development into our advocacy, and we practice creativity, humility, accountability, trauma-informed advocacy, and collaboration to reimagine and construct a legal system that works for our clients and the communities we serve. Public Counsel has active policy campaigns in the areas of Children, Youth & Families, Community Development, Consumer Rights & Economic Justice, Education Equity, Housing Justice, Immigrants’ Rights, and Veterans’ Rights.
Children, Youth & Families
Key Staff
Directing Attorney‚ Child‚ Youth & Family Advocacy
Senior Supervising Attorney
Senior Supervising Attorney
Senior Staff Attorney
- Assembly Bill 1099 (Bryan). We are co-sponsoring AB 1099 to improve access to regional center services for system-involved youth.
- Probation Depopulation. We are working with the Los Angeles County Probation Department on its efforts to depopulate its juvenile halls to ensure that developmentally disabled youth keep the specialized services and supports to which they are entitled.
- Early Defense for Child Welfare-Impacted Families. We are participating in working groups aimed at ensuring that families have access to counsel at the start of a child welfare investigation, not only after a family separation has occurred.
- Hidden Foster Care. We are part of the leadership team of a national coalition aimed at ensuring that families are not separated by child protective services without due process.
- Keeping Immigrant Families Together. We are participating in working groups aimed at ensuring that parents who have been detained and deported have a pathway to reunify with their children, including through implementation of AB 495, a bill we co-sponsored in 2025.
- Domestic Violence and Child Welfare. We are co-leading the policy subcommittee of the Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment Committee of the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council. We also participate in working groups to ensure that families impacted by domestic violence can stay safe and together and that parents and children are not penalized simply for being survivors of violence.
- Critical Information for Adoptive Families. We are working with the state, and locally with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, to develop information for families about benefits and services that may be disrupted when adoption is finalized, including how families can navigate through such disruptions.
- Wraparound Services. We are working to ensure children and youth with severe mental health needs have seamless access to wraparound services before and after adoption, and that the length of services is based on need, not an arbitrary time frame.
- Benefits for Children and Youth Adopted Out of Foster Care. We are participating in working groups at the county and state level to advocate for Foster Care, KinGAP, and Adoption Assistance Program benefit policies to properly fund children and youth with special needs and protect the due process rights of caregivers related to funding.
- Housing for Transition Age Youth. We are participating in a variety of working groups related to expanding availability and access to housing for young people in and exiting extended foster care.
Community Development
Key STaff
Directing Attorney‚ Community Development
Senior Policy Counsel
Interim Senior Supervising Attorney
Staff Attorney
Staff Attorney
Staff Attorney
Staff Attorney
Staff Attorney
UCLA Public Service Law Fellow
- Boyle Heights Community Plan. We are supporting the Eastside LEADS coalition in advancing community-driven policies for equitable development in the Boyle Heights Community Plan.
- Commercial Tenant Protections. We are developing and advocating for a commercial tenant anti-harassment ordinance in the City of Los Angeles that would protect commercial tenants from harassment by their landlords and a relocation funding framework for small businesses in Los Angeles County that are required to relocate for no fault of their own.
- Justice for Street Vendors. We are supporting the LA Street Vendor Campaign to advance more inclusive policies and stronger protections for low-income street vendors.
- Preventing Street Vendor Displacement, Criminalization, and Deportation. We are engaging with street vendors to educate them on their rights and are advocating for policy changes around the 2026 FIFA World Cup and other upcoming Los Angeles-based large scale sporting events.
- Special Vending Districts. We are working on a special vending district framework for Hollywood with Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez’s office and are continuing to advocate for policies that open pathways for street vendors in Los Angeles to access economic opportunities.
Consumer Rights & Economic Justice
Key Staff
Directing Attorney‚ Consumer Rights & Economic Justice
Senior Staff Attorney
- Assembly Bill 2558 (Berman & Aguiar-Curry). We are co-sponsoring AB 2558 to limit payday loan interest rates and total cost. We are working on this campaign as part of Californians for Economic Justice (CA4EJ), a diverse coalition of nonprofit community and faith-based organizations working together to advance economic justice for all in California, so that people and communities can live in basic economic security and dignity.
- State Advocacy to Protect Consumers. We are a founding member of the California Low-Income Consumer Coalition, which advocates for state legislation to protect low-income consumers.
- Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Defense. In partnership with other organizations, we are working to defend the CFPB so it may carry out its mission of enforcing federal consumer financial laws and protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices.
- Student Loans. Together with a coalition of organizations representing tens of millions of borrowers and families who are struggling under the weight of student loan debt, we are advocating for more affordable repayment plans, expanded opportunities for loan cancellation and forgiveness, stronger consumer protections for borrowers, and policies and regulations that hold predatory actors to account.
- California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DPFI) Advocacy. We are advocating to strengthen the DFPI so it can better protect Californians from fraud, abuse, and emerging financial harms, including through stronger regulation and enforcement.
Education Equity
KEy Staff
Directing Attorney‚ Education Equity
Senior Supervising Attorney
Senior Staff Attorney
- Protections for Student Survivors of Gender-based Violence and Harassment. We are advocating for the rights of students who survived gender-based violence and/or harassment in educational settings. We are opposing federal efforts to limit protections for sexual violence survivors, to weaponize Title IX against transgender students, and to rescind harassment guidance clarifying illegal workplace harassment. We support legislation that: (1) prevents violence and harassment in the K-12 and college settings; and (2) provides student survivors with information about their rights in administrative complaint proceedings.
- California’s Anti-Discrimination Protection Enforcement. We are working with our coalition partners to strengthen California’s policies and procedures for preventing, investigating, and remediating violations of laws that protect students from unlawful discrimination and harassment. This work includes supporting the implementation of a state Office of Civil Rights by advocating for adequate funding, staffing, and the development of more robust policies and procedures.
- Immigrant Students’ Right to Education. We are protecting access to education and opposing ICE activity in schools.
- School Discipline, Policing, and Criminalization of Students. We are opposing criminalization of school activity, increased policing in schools and harsh, punitive exclusionary practices that keep students out of school. We are advocating for alternative practices that keep students in the classroom with necessary services and supports.
- Juvenile Justice. We are working with the Education Justice Coalition and other community partners to advocate for improved educational access of detained youth at the state and county level. We advocate for improved school attendance, decreased exclusionary disciplinary practices, access to quality education and student programming, and increased transparency and accountability by all decision-makers.
- Keeping California Schools Safe and Inclusive. We are advocating to strengthen oversight of school districts to ensure that instructional materials accurately portray the cultural and racial diversity of our society, to ensure access to inclusive and representative curricula, and to safeguard the rights of all students and staff to participate fully in school life, including with respect to students’ ability to use their chosen names and pronouns and to access facilities and programming aligned with their gender identity.
Housing Justice
Key STaff
Directing Attorney‚ Community Development
Senior Policy Counsel
Interim Senior Supervising Attorney
Staff Attorney
- Tenant and Community Opportunity to Purchase. With the LA CLT Coalition, we are pushing Los Angeles County to adopt a tenant and community opportunity to purchase policy to give tenants and qualified nonprofits an exclusive right to buy rental housing before it is sold and to match third-party offers, reducing housing speculation and increasing homeownership opportunities for renters.
- Implementation of Local Affordable Housing Programs. As part of the Our Future LA and United to House LA coalitions, we are helping community groups engage in the public process shaping Measure A and Measure ULA funding policies.
- Residential Tenant Protections and Housing Affordability. We are continuing our community-led tenant protection work to help families stay housed, our land use work to center equity and combat displacement of low-income communities, and our work to develop innovative models to fund and increase the supply of affordable housing.
- Transparency in Utility Bills for Renters. As part of the Keep LA Housed coalition, we are pushing the City of Los Angeles to ban Ratio Utility Billing for tenants and bring more transparency to how tenants pay for utilities.
- Social Housing. With ACT-LA, we are working to make social housing a reality in Los Angeles by advocating for policy and programmatic changes within the city, as well as the continued spending of Measure ULA funds.
Immigrants’ Rights
Key STaff
Directing Attorney‚ Immigrants’ Rights
Directing Attorney‚ Community Development
Supervising Attorney
Staff Attorney
- Senate Bill 995 (Pérez). We are co-sponsoring SB 995 to strengthen state oversight, institute fines, and revoke licenses of private detention facilities if they fail to meet health and safety standards. Learn more here about Public Counsel’s support of this legislation—which arose directly from our representation of Masuma Khan, a 64-year-old wife, mother, and pillar of her Altadena community whom ICE detained and denied life-sustaining medications and medical care, adequate food, and appropriate clothing.
- Notario Fraud. We are advocating for policies to combat the devastating effect the unauthorized practice of immigration law by unscrupulous “notarios” has on the communities we serve.
- Sanctuary for All. We are working to oppose local collusion with federal immigration enforcement, detention, deportations, and the criminalization of immigrants.
- Immigration Detention. We are fighting to bring dignity to detained individuals and to end immigration detention and all opportunities to financially profit from the detention of immigrant communities.
- Protections for Vulnerable Immigrants. We are working to expand and protect the rights of U, T, and VAWA visa applicants, unaccompanied immigrant children, asylum seekers, and survivors of serious crime and human trafficking.
- Universal Representation. In coalition with the Vera Institute for Justice and other partners in the Fairness to Freedom campaign, we are working to ensure that legal representation is available to all immigrants, regardless of criminal history.
- Due Process. In collaboration with Court Watch LA, we are monitoring the threat to due process in immigration court through legal challenges and court watching.
Veterans’ Rights
Key STaff
Senior Supervising Attorney
Equal Justice Works Fellow Sponsored by Lavan-Harris Charitable Fund
- Veterans’ Justice Taskforce. We are working with our pro bono partner Milbank LLP to develop a Veterans’ Justice Taskforce to support advocacy for legislation, regulations, and executive orders relating to veterans, including those designed to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs disability claims and discharge upgrade process, increase access to mental health resources and housing opportunities, protect diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and center female veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma.
Our Partnerships
- Acacia Justice Center
- ACLU SoCal
- ACT-LA
- The Alliance for Children’s Rights
- Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice
- California Community Land Trust Network
- California Family Integrity Coalition
- California Low-Income Consumer Coalition
- Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care
- Coalition for Equitable Development
- Consumer Federation of America, California Section
- Consumers for Auto Reliability & Safety
- Children’s Law Center
- CHIRLA
- Disability Rights California
- Eastside LEADS
- Education for All
- HERA
- Immigrant Defenders Law Center
- Keep LA Housed
- LA Community Land Trust Coalition
- LA VAWA Coalition
- LaDefensa’s Court Watch Program
- Local bar associations
- The Los Angeles Sanctuary Coalition
- Los Angeles Street Vending Campaign
- MALDEF
- National Consumer Law Center
- NIPNLG
- One Roof 2.0 meetings
- Our Future LA
- RepresentLA
- Reimagine Child Safety
- Small Business Alliance for Equitable Communities
- United to House LA
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