Rachel Lederman
I have been practicing law for eighteen years, primarily in the areas
of civil rights and tenants’ rights affirmative litigation, and criminal
and juvenile appeals. I am the co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild
Post-9/11 Committee and a past vice president of the S.F.
Bay Area National Lawyers Guild chapter, and produce the NLG’s
Know Your Rights materials. I am a steering committee member
of the International
Human Rights Initiative,
a Governing Board member of Bay
Area Police Watch and a member of the NLG
National Police Accountability Project.
I have litigated several
significant cases concerning police misconduct and First Amendment
rights. I was one of the primary attorneys on a legal team that recently
won a sweeping overhaul of Oakland
Police Department demonstrations and crowd
control policies. This was in the context of a federal civil rights class
action arising from the shootings of 58 people with “less lethal” munitions during
an antiwar demonstration at the Port of Oakland on April 7, 2003. I obtained
a one million dollar settlement and a significant published decision in a class
action for 350 people arrested during a State of Emergency in San Francisco in
1992. (Collins v. Jordan, 110 F.3d 1363 (9th Cir. 1996)). I won a $225,000 settlement
for 17 AIDS activists briefly detained in bars and restaurants by the San Francisco
Police during the 1989 “Castro sweep”.
I have successfully sued numerous landlords
for better housing conditions and for wrongful eviction of low income tenants.
I have represented indigent criminal and juvenile defendants in approximately
300 felony, delinquency and dependency appeals. I receive court appointments
in the District Courts of Appeal throughout California.
Some of my published appellate decisions:
People v. Hilger (2003) 105 Cal.App.4th 202
People v. Chacon (2003) 1 Cal.Rptr.3d 223
Collins v. Jordan, 110 F.3d 1363 (9th Cir. 1997)
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