YLC Hires Two Staff Attorneys For San Francisco Office
Profiles of the new staff attorneys:
Corene Kendrick
Corene Kendrick joined the Youth Law Center in October 2005 as a Staff Attorney. Before joining the Youth Law Center, she was a Skadden Fellow Staff Attorney at Children’s Rights in New York, where her Skadden fellowship project focused on articulating legal strategies to fight the growing trend of states institutionalizing foster children, instead of placing them in family foster homes.
As a law student, she clerked at the National Center for Youth Law and the Domestic Violence Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, and was a teacher and chairperson for the Streetlaw program, which sends law students to juvenile detention facilities to educate youth about their legal rights and responsibilities. Prior to attending law school, Corene worked for several years in Washington, D.C., including as a Congressional lobbyist for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Corene received her J.D. in 2003 from Stanford Law School, where she received the Keck Award for Public Service, which is given to the graduating student with the most outstanding public interest work and service to the community. She also holds a Masters of Public Affairs from the University of Texas, and a B.A. in Journalism magna cum laude from George Washington University.
Deborah Escobedo
Deborah Escobedo has been a Staff Attorney at the Youth Law Center since November 2005. Prior to coming to the Youth Law Center, Deborah was an education advocate for 15 years. She was involved in litigation and administrative and legislative advocacy on education equity issues, in particular, those involving the rights of language minority and immigrant children. She has extensive experience in litigating statewide issues impacting California’s immigrant communities and was either lead counsel or co-counsel on legal challenges to statewide anti-immigrant initiatives- Proposition 187 (Pedro A. v. Dawson) and Proposition 227 (Angel v. Davis). She was also lead counsel in Pazmino v. CA. Board of Ed., one of the first successful cases brought under the federal “No Child Left Behind” Act. Deborah received her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law in 1979.
Deborah received the National Hispanic Bar Association Award for Excellence in Public Service in 1998; the San Francisco Minority Bar Coalition Unity Award in 1997 and the California La Raza Lawyers Association Cruz Reynoso Community Service Award in 1992. She has also received numerous awards from education-related organizations for her advocacy on behalf of language minority children.