Pilar Gonzalez Morales
VP of Programs and Litigation
Pilar (she/her/ella) is the VP of Programs and Litigation and oversees the delivery of legal services across the organization as well as LAAW’s impact litigation. Pilar advocates for the use of an intersectional framework to serve low-income workers and communities. Prior to joining LAAW, Pilar worked at the Social Justice Legal Foundation (SJLF) and the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC) where she focused her practice on litigating systemic cases, including multiple class actions, that challenged the carceral and police state. At SJLF, Pilar helped to build the organizations litigation docket, including by leading a team in filing Ronduen et. al. v. The GEO Group a class action lawsuit on behalf of immigrants detained at the Adelanto Detention Center who were poisoned by the private prison company GEO Group. At CREEC, Pilar was part of multiple impact litigation cases including: Fraihat et. al. vs. ICE, a nationwide class action lawsuit challenging the conditions of immigration detention which led to the release of over 50,000 individuals from detention during the COVID-19 pandemic, and White et. al. vs. Sacramento Police Department which argues that the police discriminated against racial justice protesters and aided white supremacist groups during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Before then, Pilar worked at Disability Rights California where she represented children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as people with disabilities held in immigration detention. Pilar also worked for four years at Dentons Munoz in Costa Rica as part of the Litigation and Mediation team. Pilar received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from Duke University. She is admitted to practice in California.
Outside of LAAW, Pilar spends a great deal of time hanging out with her three nephews, watching FC Barcelona and Warriors games, and reading.