Who We Are

We are extremely passionate, quixotic, energetic, love tackling tough problems, and believe in continuous personal growth.

A world where everyone who needs legal help gets it

Open Door Legal is pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation. Our goal is to show that when everyone has access to the law, poverty will be dramatically reduced.

Our model of universal access is scalable, sustainable, and the most cost-effective way to address poverty. 

Over the next few years we plan to expand citywide, making San Francisco the first city in the country with universal access.  We also hope to become a model for national replication, and want to have a systemic impact on how we, as a society, ensure justice for the poor.

read our founding story

Our Board of Directors

Kathy Chao, Board President

Partner, Olivier Schreiber & Chao

Amy Chiu, Development

Product Lead, Clarify Health Solutions

Michelle Carrington

Construction Foreman, Former ODL Client

Bart Volkmer

General Counsel, Dropbox

Mira Park Kim

Senior Portfolio Manager, Wells Fargo

David Lisson

Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell

Amanda Hundt

Vice President, Health Catalyst

Ieeshea Romero

Community Leader

Meet Our Staff

 

Executive Team

Adrian Tirtanadi

Executive Director/Founder

adrian@opendoorlegal.org

Charmaine Lacsina

Director of Innovation and Technology

charmaine@opendoorlegal.org

Laura Turner

Director of Development and Communications

laurat@opendoorlegal.org

Victoria Harris

Director of Finance

victoria@opendoorlegal.org

Virginia Taylor

General Counsel
Director of Legal Services/Founder

virginia@opendoorlegal.org

Whitney Tu

Director of Talent and Culture

whitney@opendoorlegal.org

Frontline Team

Camille Frausto

Managing Frontline Attorney

 

Alondra Almanza

Frontline Partner – Bayview

 

Hakika Drisker

Frontline Partner – Western Addition

 

Herlinda Aguirre

Client Support Specialist

 

Lydia Yee

Frontline Partner 

Legal Team

Alexis Collentine

Senior Family Law Attorney

 

Alison Levy

Housing Attorney

 

Brenda Falcon

Employment & Civil Litigation Paralegal

 

Brittani Lash
Brittani Lash

Family Law Attorney

 

Cynthia Hernandez

Immigration Paralegal

 

Dyne
Dyne Biancardi

Senior UD Housing Attorney

 

Emilia Cortez

Family Law Paralegal

 

Fabiano Valerio

Senior Immigration Attorney

 

Gwen Wu

Senior Elder Law Attorney

 

Jennifer Wang

Civil Litigation Attorney

 

Johanna Romero

Housing Paralegal

 

Kelsey Merrick

Housing Law Attorney

 

Leslie Pang

Elder Law Legal Secretary

 

Marianne Armenta

Senior Employment Litigation Attorney

 

Megan Armstrong

Housing Attorney

 

Nikki Love

Managing Housing Attorney

 

Patricia Moon

Deputy Director of Legal Services

 

Rachel Llarenas

Public Benefits Attorney

 

Spring Carver

Housing Litigation Attorney

 

Stef Young

Family Law Attorney

 

Tara Macomber

Managing Civil Litigation Attorney

 

Vivian
Vivian Cho

Civil Litigation Attorney

 

Vivian
Yadira Zagal

Eviction Defense Paralegal

 

Administration & Development Team

Amanda Lochun

Staff Accountant

amanda@opendoorlegal.org

Chris Brown

Senior Software Developer

chris@opendoorlegal.org

Giovanni Herrera

Office Administrator

giovanni@opendoorlegal.org

Hannah
Hannah Deetz

Development and Marketing Associate

hannahd@opendoorlegal.org

Hannah
Jennifer Garcia

Public Grants and Data Manager

jenniferg@opendoorlegal.org

Jessica Arita

Engagement Coordinator

jess@opendoorlegal.org

Kelsey Renz

Volunteer Coordinator

kelseyr@opendoorlegal.org

Lindsey Pace

People Operations Manager

lindsey@opendoorlegal.org

Noreen Lopez

Talent Coordinator

noreen@opendoorlegal.org

Sierra Loya

Strategic Partnerships Manager

sierra@opendoorlegal.org

Want to get involved? Join our team as a volunteer!

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Please make checks payable to Open Door Legal and mail them to:

Open Door Legal
PO Box #369
San Francisco, CA 94112

We also accept donations via:

Cryptocurrency

Donor-Advised Fund

Stock

You can view all of the ways to give at https://opendoorlegal.org/donation-information. 

Please contact laurat@opendoorlegal.org if you have any questions or need any additional information.  Thank you so much for the support!

Ever since childhood, our co-founder Adrian has been dedicated to reducing poverty.

He studied systemic poverty in college and went to work in the field for a few years. Eventually, he had a thesis that legal aid was the most cost-effective way to address poverty in America. He wrote up a business plan and used it to apply to law school. 

The idea was to create the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation that ensures everyone can obtain timely, competent legal help for any legal issue, regardless of ability to pay. That had never been done before in the history of the United States.

In law school, he met Virginia, our Programs Director. Together, they co-founded the organization, two weeks after Adrian passed the bar.

When we opened we put a sign in the window, and with just that marketing and almost no other outreach we were overwhelmed with requests for help from people with good cases who had been turned away everywhere else.

Our first year we had revenue of $35,000. We would hand shred documents because a shredder was too expensive. Despite the financial challenges, we were able to work on over 280 cases in everything from housing law to family law to consumer law in the first year alone.

The hours were extreme, the pay was low, and the learning curve was steep. Still, we persisted. We knew that almost everyone we helped was not able to receive services anywhere else. Eventually, we attracted the interest of funders. We tripled our revenue for several years in a row. In 2015, we won the Bay Area Google Impact Challenge, which enabled us to expand even more. In 2019, we secured additional funding from the city that allowed us to open two new centers in the Excelsior and Western Addition.

As of 2020, our staff has grown to 27 full-time employees. We’ve shown that universal access is possible. Now, we plan to scale city-wide, make San Francisco the first city in the country’s history to have universal access to legal help, and become a model for national replication.

CITATIONS

1. American University, Key Studies and Data About How Legal Aid Improves Housing Outcomes https://www.american.edu/spa/jpo/toolkit/upload/housing-7-30-19.pdf

2. George Washington Law School, In Pursuit of Justice? Case Outcomes and the Delivery of Unbundled Legal Services https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi