Sylvia Torres-Guillen

Sylvia graduated from Harvard University and earned her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Sylvia is the Executive Director and Director of Litigation for the Disability Rights Legal Center.

A fearless and tenacious trial lawyer, Sylvia spent decades fighting for civil rights and social, racial, environmental, and economic justice. As a federal public defender for nearly 20 years, the State’s first Latina General Counsel of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, and ACLU of Southern California’s Statewide Director of Education Equity, she has fought for the most marginalized and oppressed communities, achieving exceptional results in numerous federal and state courts. She has had 40 trials in federal court and, in two cases alone, she successfully obtained settlements totaling over $175 million dollars.

Her commitment to public service and community extends beyond the courtroom. She currently serves on the boards of the Cate School and the Oakwood School. She has served as President of the Latina Lawyers Bar Association, Vice-President of the Mexican American Bar Foundation, and co-chair of the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Commission on the Status of Latinas in the Legal Profession. She has received the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal’s California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year (“CLAY”) award, the Latina Lawyers Bar Association Luminarias Award, the State Bar of California’s Ronald M. George Public Lawyer of the Year Award, President’s Award by the Ventura County Mexican American Bar Association Education Foundation, the Mexican American Bar Association’s Benito Juarez Attorney of the Year Award, the California Rural Legal Assistance Community Leadership Award, and the Los Angeles Business Journal’s “Leaders of Influence: Minority Attorneys.” Sylvia was also selected as Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow in 2019-2020, and to the Rockwood Leadership Institute as a 2019 Lead Now California Fellow.