RBGG’s Lisa Ells and Gay Grunfeld have been named to the Daily Journal’s Top Women Lawyers list for 2024. This year’s Top Women award is the third for Ells and the 12th for Grunfeld.
In the DJ profile, Ells speaks about her career at RBGG: “”My entire legal career has been at Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP. It’s the perfect fit for someone like me who is naturally curious because we are generalists and I’m constantly learning new things. At the same time, I get to work on cutting edge constitutional and civil rights cases in the public interest. I’m lucky to have found such a unique firm with wonderful, brilliant, committed colleagues – there’s nowhere else quite like it.”
The DJ profile of Grunfeld focuses on her work for prison reform, noting, “Concern for vulnerable prison [incarcerated persons] has guided much of Grunfeld’s work. She has won Daily Journal CLAY Awards for her efforts in that sector in 2016 and 2013. Growing up in Texas, Grunfeld said, she saw a lot of social injustice that propelled her into the law.”
The profile highlights Grunfeld’s work in Armstrong v. Newson – the long-running class action focused on defending the rights of incarcerated persons with disabilities in California prisons. In March 2024 Grunfeld’s team obtained an important order from Judge Claudia Wilken that requires extensive changes in the way California prisons provide access to persons with disabilities seeking to be released on parole. Grunfeld commented, “A truly great order from Judge Wilken. It doesn’t finish the case, but it’s an important breakthrough with multiple aspects. For lifers, it’s their only way out, and if they’re denied, it may take another 15 years before they get another chance.”