Nyla has been committed to advancing access to income, health insurance, and housing for people with disabilities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for over 15 years. She is proud to be a first-generation, queer, and gender non-conforming lawyer of Southwest Asian descent. Nyla has presented trainings at statewide and national legal conferences on the topics of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Racial Justice in Legal Aid, Trauma-Informed Lawyering, and Successfully Addressing the Materiality of Drug Addiction and Alcoholism in SSI Cases. She also provides in-house trainings on Advocating and Managing from a DEI and Racial Justice lens.
Prior to becoming Director of DEI and Social Impact, Nyla served as a Managing Attorney at HAC. As Managing Attorney, she managed a caseload of District Court appeals and co-supervised a team of 50 staff attorneys, legal advocates, and volunteers who represented over 2,000 clients in their claims for public disability benefits. She completed an Executive Fellowship at OneJustice and served as board Co-Chair of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom and as board member with Bay Area Young Positives. Nyla is also a hip hop fusion MC, musician, and poet who uses music as a medium to disseminate her passion for racial equity and social justice to the masses.
Executive Fellowship, OneJustice, 2019
J.D., Golden Gate University School of Law, 2005
B.A., English Literature, University of Arizona, 2002