$4.5M for Scott Olsen

In March, 2014, Rachel Lederman and co-counsel Jim Chanin and Julie Houk obtained a $4.5 million settlement for Scott Olsen, a 24 year old Marines veteran. He was peacefully protesting as part of Occupy Oakland, when he was shot in the head with a lead-filled “beanbag” by an Oakland Police Officer, shattering his skull and causing serious permanent brain injury.

Read More

BART arrest

Challenging Police Racial Profiling

We are suing BART for racial profiling. This commuter was violently assaulted and arrested by BART police for nothing but "riding BART while Black."

Read More

Water is Life

Stopping Militarized Police Repression at Standing Rock

On November 20, 2016, law enforcement attacked Water Protectors engaged in peaceful prayer and protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline with water cannons and explosive grenades, injuring hundreds. We are litigating to put a stop to the indiscriminate use of these dangerous weapons.

Read More

Upholding Housing Rights

Alexsis Beach and Rachel Lederman are litigating for better housing conditions for low income tenants in the Santee neighborhood of San Jose.

Read More

Fighting Sexual Harassment on Campus

We represent UC Berkeley students and alumni who were serially sexually harassed by a professor. After a two year struggle, the professor has finally been terminated by the university, but work remains to be done to change the culture of sexist discrimination and harassment at Berkeley.

Read More

Changing How OPD Polices Demonstrations

This article profiles some of Rachel's ongoing work to bring OPD into compliance with the strict restrictions on use of force, weapons, arrests, and jailing mandated by the federal court settlements in our crowd control cases.

Read More

Rachel Lederman and Alexsis C. Beach have been providing high quality, affordable legal services for 30 years. Our mission is to advance social justice by advocating for, and working collaboratively with, those who are disempowered in the legal system.

Police Misconduct

1

Rachel Lederman has been litigating on behalf of persons whose rights have been violated by the police since 1989. She is currently challenging brutality and racial profiling by police agencies throughout the Bay Area. Rachel’s work has had a significant impact on police crowd control practices, upholding the fundamental right to demonstrate for social change.

Tenants’ Rights

2We believe housing is a human right and fight for the rights of low and middle income tenants who have been wrongfully evicted; subjected to substandard, unhabitable conditions; displaced by fires caused by housing defects; rented illegal units; locked out; harassed or abused by landlords; discriminated against; or overcharged.

Family Law

3Alexsis Beach provides the full range of legal assistance to opposite sex and same sex spouses with marital dissolutions (divorce), and with modifications of child support and visitation. We also help people who are starting a family using Assisted Reproductive Technology to make their intentions clear with sperm donor agreements and ovum donor agreements.

Personal Injury

4We advocate aggressively to get fair compensation for people injured in bike, car and pedestrian accidents. We offer a free consultation, and strive to explain the legal process at each stage of the case and clearly present your options.

We now have a downtown Oakland office as well as our main office in San Francisco's Mission District, close to public transportation.