OAKLAND, CA – The Oakland City Attorney' Office and the national nonprofit Public Rights Project have announced a partnership to increase City legal resources for civil rights, economic justice and environmental litigation to protect the rights of all Oaklanders.
On March 15, the Public Rights Project announced that it is launching its fellowship program in Oakland, where the nonprofit is based. The program will place a full-time legal fellow in the City Attorney's Office to help with lawsuits to safeguard the rights of Oakland's diverse communities, including communities of color, women, immigrants and low-income residents. The legal fellow will support the work of the City Attorney's Affirmative Litigation, Innovation & Enforcement Division, which handles actions such as Oakland's recent lawsuits against the world's five largest publicly traded oil companies for deceiving the public about the catastrophic danger of fossil fuel-driven climate change, and against Wells Fargo for predatory and racially discriminatory mortgage lending practices against African American and Hispanic applicants.