What is BALI │Bay Area Legal Incubator? 

BALI is a community of solo attorneys dedicated to providing affordable legal services and promoting social justice.

BALI provides introductory, one-year incubator program to help newer solos and recent law school graduates accelerate the launch of solo practices serving low-and middle-income communities in a wide spectrum of practice areas. We also provide opportunity for more experienced solo attorneys to join and benefit as graduate fellows and attorneys in residence. Local communities benefit from access to legal assistance. Attorneys benefit from a shared community and office space, free resources, coaching and training in emerging best practices and technology.

BALI is not a law firm.  We are social-mission community (with a physical hub and online network) for individual California attorneys committed to serving people of modest economic means. Each individual attorney operates her or his own, distinct and independent practice. No legal representation relationship exists in any way between BALI and any of the clients or prospective clients of the attorneys within our community and/or any user of this website and BALI or any of its affiliates.

In submitting a query through this website for legal help, NO attorney-client relationship is being created. Do not send BALI or any of its community attorneys confidential information or documents through the BALI website. If you do not hear from an attorney within 72 hours of submitting a query, no attorney in the BALI community is available to provide you legal assistance. 

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Our Community of Attorneys

Feel free to contact directly and review the profiles and websites of individual attorneys currently within the BALI community.

	Attorney and BALI Profile Page	Practice Area	Website
	Alexandria Bettencourt, Bettencourt Family Law and Mediation	Family Law	www.bettencourtfamilylaw.com
	Mitchell Chyette, Law Office of Mitchell Chyette	Education, Elder Law, Intellectual property, Contracts, Real Property, Consumer, Interest Rate Regulations, Civil Rights, Estate Disputes, Bankruptcy, Environmental Regulation, Insurance Coverage, Business Torts, Personal Injury and Constitutional Law.	www.chyettelaw.com
	Daniel Dellafosse, Law Office of Daniel Dellafosse	Cannabis law, Transactions, Estate planning, Homeowner Association Law	www.danieldlaw.com
	Nephtali Gonzales, Nephta Law	Labor and Employment
	Beth Hodess, Hodess Law	Taxation	www.hodesslaw.com
	WookSun (Phil) Hong  , Law Offices of Wooksun Hong	Landlord tenant, IP, Immigration, Non-Profit and Social Enterprise, Trademark, Social Security, Business and Corporate, Contracts, Bankruptcy, Intellectual Property, Trusts and Estates, Civil Rights	whlaw.legal.io
	Carl W Isaacson, Attorney at Law	Family, Landlord Tenant
	Astkhik Levantian, Law Office of Astkhik Levantian	Family and Immigration Law
	Mary Loung, Loung Law	Trusts and Estates	www.lounglaw.com
	Robin Miller	Education Law
	Tatiana Perez, Law Office of Tatiana Perez	Trusts and Estates, Family Law	www.lawofficesoftatianaperez.com
	Jeff Pettibone, Pettibone Tenant Law	Landlord Tenant	www.pettibonetenantlaw.com
	Dominic Ripoli, Elevated Law	Cannabis Law and Legislative Practice, Transactions, Corporate Formation	www.DominicRipoli.com
	Cynthia (Cyndi) Tyler, Law Office of Cynthia Tyler	Immigration	www.catylerlaw.com and www.tylerimmigration.com
	Brandon Tran, Law Offices of Brandon Tran	Estate planning, Real Estate, Landlord tenant, Business formation, Trusts and Estates, Business and Corporate, Real Property, Commercial, Foreclosure
	Natalia Ventsko, Law Office of Natalia A. Ventsko	Tax

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Staff

Cynthia Chandler

Director

cynthia@acbanet.org

As Director of BALI | Bay Area Legal Incubator, Cynthia Chandler’s work is 90% fairy godmother and 10% fixer – she makes attorneys’ dreams come true while keeping them out of trouble and promoting social justice. BALI is an Oakland, California-based, social-mission, legal incubator launched by the Alameda County Bar Association to accelerate the launch of affordable, community law practices.

Cynthia has over 20 years’ experience as a social entrepreneur, activist, academic and attorney. She co-founded and built several innovative social justice organizations, including Critical Resistance, Justice Now, and the Eviction Defense Center. She has coached dozens of social entrepreneurs in building seminal ventures. As an attorney, her practice is equally innovative: when law does not allow the relief she seeks for her clients, she changes it. For example, she helped create the compassionate release legal process in CA and nationally, allowing a mechanism for releasing people dying in prison. Cynthia spent much of the last 10 years documenting California’s illegal policy of coercive sterilization of women in prison through 2012, and drafting successful ameliorative legislation to stop this abuse. Cynthia maintains a legislative practice, contributing to key legislation aimed at shrinking imprisonment.

Cynthia has received numerous awards for her innovative legal work, including: California Women Lawyers’ prestigious Fay Stender Award, 2015; Women's Health Activist Network’s Top 30 Activist for Women's Health, 2005; Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award, 2001; and California Law Business’ Attorney to Whom California Can Be Most Grateful, 1997.

Cynthia received her JD from Harvard Law School and a MPhil in Criminology from University of Cambridge.

Cynthia is the mother of two activist daughters. She learns from them daily.

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Partners and Sponsors

BALI is a project of the Alameda County Bar Association and its nonprofit offshoot Volunteer Legal Services Corporation in collaboration with four San Francisco Bay Area law schools that sponsor attorneys to participate in our initial one-year incubator program. The hub is conveniently located in Oakland at the Alameda County Law Library.

In 2018, we expanded and diversified to take "free agent" attorneys into our initial one-year incubator program. Free agents are attorneys joining our community who are not alumni of our sponsoring law schools. Whenever possible. our free agents are graciously sponsored by private donors that take on the cost share per participant in our initial incubator program historically paid by sponsoring law schools for their alums. These private donors allow us to grow the diversity of our community and are essential to our work diversifying the legal profession. 

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Supporters

BALI was launched with generous support from the State Bar of California Center on Access to Justice, the Bernard E.  & Alba Witkin Charitable Foundation, Morrison & Foerster and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliff.

In May 2016, we launched our shared office community - The Bernard E. and Alba Witkin Hub - inside the Alameda County Law Library (we love our ribbon cutting photo!). We are forever grateful for the support from the Bernard E. & Alba Witkin Charitable Foundation for funding the build-out of hub that is the center of our community, and for supporting our program's growth overall. 

BALI is generously supported by the following corporate donors that provide invaluable in-kind donated resources to our community in the form of: coaching; equipment; research tools and practice guides; case management software; website solutions with built-in referral, content management system, data and payment functionality; continuing education; and subsidized rent and supplies. 

Currently, the $ value of benefit provided each BALI community attorney joining our initial incubator program is $35,000 annually.  The $ value of in-kind donations contributing to the BALI hub infrastructure is over $125,000 annually.

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Contact Information

For general information about BALI, contact:

Cynthia Chandler, BALI Mentoring Attorney, cynthia@acbanet.org

BALI │ Bay Area Legal Incubator, 125 12th St., Ste 100-BALI, Oakland, CA 94607