Fanna Gamal was a 2018 New America CA Fellow and an education and juvenile defense attorney at the East Bay Community Law Center, a clinic of the UC Berkeley Law School and the largest provider of free legal services in Alameda County.
Gamal’s work as an attorney sits at the intersection of the public education system and the affordability crisis. Through direct representation, organizing, and education, Gamal advocates on behalf of students battling poverty, homelessness and displacement. Her advocacy seeks to disrupt cycles of generational poverty that steer young people away from meaningful life opportunities and towards institutionalization. Gamal also serves as a clinical supervisor and lecturer at Berkeley Law School where she trains law students in holistic, client-centered advocacy models. Her writing on girls in the juvenile justice system, policing, and youth-centered legal advocacy has been published in the California Law Review and the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.
Born in Khartoum, Sudan and raised in the Bay Area, Gamal received her B.A., with honors, from Tufts University and a J.D. from UC Berkeley Law School, where she was a member of the California Law Review and held research positions at the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. She is grateful for her brilliant clients and dedicated colleagues who remind her that education is not a gift given to us by benevolent institutions but a right we are always fighting for.