Listening is job one for new Bar Foundation chief
Bringing with her a deep
understanding of disparities within the American justice system, Sonia
Gonzales’ self-imposed goal as the new executive director of the
California Bar Foundation is to listen.
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Sonia Gonzales |
Listening, explained the
former acting head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San
Francisco Bay Area, is key to expanding the universe of those who support the
foundation’s mission to increase access to justice. Gonzales’
official first day with the foundation was January 17.
“The legal community as
a whole has a responsibility to help improve access to appropriate legal
services for all Californians, especially those from low-income or ethnic
minority communities,” said Gonzales, a product of Stanford University
and the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law. “We
will be judged on how we treat the least among us.”
After joining the Lawyers’ Committee
in January 2010 as managing director, Gonzales led an organization-wide
rebuild, including the development and implementation of the first new
strategic plan in a decade. She was named interim executive director in August
2011.
She currently serves on the
board of Centro Legal de la Raza, and was a member of the Civil Rights Task
Force for Attorney General Kamala Harris' transition team.
The Lawyers’ Committee for
Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area dates back to 1968 and is affiliated
with the national Lawyers’ Committee in advancing, protecting and
promoting the rights of communities of color, immigrants and refugees. Recent
projects include advocacy on behalf of the minority-owned businesses and
formerly incarcerated, plus work to help implement the protections of the
California Voting Rights Act.
Before joining the Lawyers’
Committee, Gonzales served as assistant director of the ACLU of Northern
California, where she helped manage the largest ACLU affiliate in the United
States, with a staff of 60, a board of directors of 50 and more than 53,000
members.
Previously, she worked at the
Morrison & Foerster firm in San Francisco and, as a law student, at the
National ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw
Pittman firm.
Prior to law school, Gonzales
served as a political director for a major presidential campaign in 2004 and
for the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., and as a legislative
assistant and press secretary in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“The success of the Bar
Foundation’s mission depends on the collective effort of our board and
staff, donors and grantees, plus the State Bar and other community partners
that recognize the importance of helping California’s most disadvantaged residents,”
Gonzales added. “This has everything to do with equality under the
law.”