Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP (“ECBAWM”) is pleased to announce that Vasudha Talla has become a partner of the firm.

Vasudha Talla is an experienced litigator and advocate with over fifteen years of experience representing clients in complex civil litigation in California and New York. She maintains a diverse civil rights practice that includes constitutional litigation challenging federal, state, and local practices targeting immigrants and refugees; illegal prison and jail conditions, including over-detention; excessive force, mass surveillance, and other unlawful practices by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies; First Amendment violations; access to counsel; wrongful conviction; and employment and housing discrimination cases alleging discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, familial status, pregnancy, and source of income.

While at the firm, Ms. Talla has obtained significant damages and injunctive relief for her clients, including in Nunez v. City of New York (consent judgment with court-appointed monitor to oversee protections for individuals incarcerated on Rikers Island and DOC custody) and Coalition on Homelessness v. City and County of San Francisco (consent judgment with protections for unhoused people and their belongings). She has overseen the administration of class action settlements delivering significant monetary relief to class members, including in Jones v. City of New York (over $170 million in claims-made settlement for individuals overdetained even though they were entitled to release on bail) and Onadia v. City of New York (settlement fund of up to $92.5 million for individuals overdetained on the basis of ICE detainer requests).

Outside of the firm, she serves as a member of the Board of the ACLU Foundation of Northern California.

Ms. Talla began her career as a law clerk for the Honorable Keith P. Ellison in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and as an Arthur P. Liman Fellow with Sanctuary for Families in New York. She has also worked at the International Refugee Assistance Project in Beirut and New York, as well as the Civilian Complaint Review Board in New York. For several years, she directed the immigrants’ rights team at the ACLU of Northern California, leading a team of attorneys and investigators to advance and protect the rights of immigrants on issues such as immigration detention and enforcement; surveillance, data sharing and privacy; driver’s licenses and the Real ID Act; and religious and racial discrimination. Her cases and campaigns have been featured in national media outlets, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Intercept. Ms. Talla is a graduate of New York University and Yale Law School.

ECBAWM, U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 Civil Rights “Law Firm of the Year,” is one of the leading boutique litigation firms in the country. Founded in 1996, ECBAWM has litigated many of the most important cases of the last two decades, helping to save the High Line, end Rikers Island, put Senator John McCain on the presidential ballot, lead the sex abuse lawsuit against The Ohio State University, wipe out over $1 billion in fraudulent consumer debt, get some justice for the family of Tamir Rice. In just the last year, ECBAWM has worked with its partners to challenge the Trump Administration’s targeting of immigrants, cuts to the National Institutes of Health, and unlawful firings and closures at Voice of America and the U.S. Institute of Peace. ECBAWM is a leader in the fight against employment and housing discrimination, police and prison brutality, disability abuse, school bullying, voter suppression, consumer fraud, wrongful convictions, and sexual harassment and abuse.

ECBAWM also has a substantial criminal defense and attorney ethics practice, and is a leading commercial litigation firm, successfully conducting mediations, arbitrations, trials, and appeals in federal and state courts, involving a wide array of substantial disputes ranging from breach of contract to defamation, fraud to copyright infringement, and business torts to restrictive covenants.