Maha Ibrahim

You want to get to know her because:

• Maha brings her experience in hands-on community relations and training as a public interest lawyer through the lens of Critical Race Theory to her work as an attorney at ERA, and is a true “boots on the ground, heart in the community” attorney.
• She is a lead author of ERA’s school and education district, campus, and legislative law and policy models, including several large urban school district policies and administrative regulations, university board policies, and Complaint investigation and resolution regulations, and California’s landmark Senate Bill 493 to help student survivors of sexual violence.
• Prior to joining ERA in 2016, Maha had 7 years of professional community organizing and policy-framing experience as a staffer in the district offices of Congresswoman Barbara Lee (2006-2009) and former State Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (2009-2012).
• Maha was part of the ERA legal representation that negotiated a $1 million+ settlement for women working in non-traditional fields
• Her representation of education clients has contributed to over $1 million in settlements for Title IX complainants, as well as far reaching, multi-year programmatic monitoring and policy reform.
• Maha has authored ERA’s forthcoming report on high school gender recruitment for STEM programs and works closely with local student groups on their civil rights under Title IX.
• Maha oversees and manages ERA’s national law clerk program and has created a model program using the pivot to more advanced remote work systems during the COVID-19 era as an opportunity to expand access, diversity, and the quality and intensity of experiential legal learning in our program for students from schools across the nation.
• She was a founding board member and co-director of the UCLA Law Women, an executive board member of the Journal for Islamic and Near Eastern Law, and a two-term executive board member of UCLA Law’s 40+-year-old student-founded and student-coordinated network of volunteer legal aid clinics, El Centro Legal.

Alumna of:

• Maha is a graduate of UCLA’s Epstein Public Interest Law Program (2015) and a student in the law school’s Critical Race Studies program.
• She is a proud product of the California Community College System.  She attended Riverside Community College from 2002-2004, and served as the district’s student trustee from 2003-2004.  Additionally, Maha is a graduate of the Mills College Institute for Civic Leadership (2006 cohort).
• She is also a graduate of UC Berkeley (2006)

Outside of work:

• Maha is active in numerous East Bay and National Community and Political Organizations and Nonprofits in executive board, chair-woman, and advisory board positions.
• Maha has served as a county supervisor-appointed commissioner on the Alameda County Commission on the Status of Women and on the volunteer advisory committee for President Biden’s transition team on Title IX matters.
• Maha is an ardent devotee of the importance of mentorships, both as a mentor and a fortunate mentee of amazing women and girls and some outstanding men.

More about Maha.