Alina Ball

Bio

Professor Alina Ball is the founding director of the Social Enterprise & Economic Empowerment Clinic at UC Law SF. This in-house corporate law clinic is a unique blend of transactional lawyering with an eye towards critically examining issues of economic and social justice. Her scholarship focuses on business law, lawyering and the legal profession, legal education, and critical race theory. She is also the faculty co-director of the Center for Racial and Economic Justice at UC Law SF. She was recognized as a 2015-16 AALS Bellow Scholar for her corporate representation and collaborations to increase access to safe drinking water in rural communities. In 2018, Ball received the AALS Shanara Gilbert Award acknowledging her commitment to teaching and advancing racial and social justice through clinical legal education.

Before her career in academia, Professor Ball was a corporate associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP, in San Francisco and Washington, DC, where her practice focused on representing private and public companies in debt, venture capital, private equity, and M&A transactions. She received her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. from UCLA School of Law, with a specialization in Critical Race Studies, and B.A. degree from Wellesley College, majoring in Mathematics and Spanish, with a concentration in Latin American Studies.

She is actively engaged in community work and is honored to serve on the board of directors for several racial justice and equity nonprofits, including Public Advocates.

Education

• University of California, Los Angeles
  J.D., Law 2008

• Wellesley College
  B.A., Mathematics and Spanish

• Georgetown University Law Center
  LL.M., Clinical Advocacy

Selected Scholarship

• Community Development Law and Economic Justice—Why Law Matters: The Potential Impact of Corporate Law Clinics
  26 J. Affordable Housing & Commun. Dev. L. 51 2017

• From Business Tax Theory to Practice
  with Manoj Viswanathan, 24 Clinical L. Rev. 27 2017

• Social Enterprise Governance
  U Pa. J. Bus. Law 2016

• Disruptive Pedagogy: Incorporating Critical Theory in Business Law Clinics
  22 CLINICAL L. REV. 1 2015

• An Imperative Redefinition of Community: Incorporating Reentry Lawyers to Increase the Efficacy of Community Economic Development Initiatives
  UCLA Law Review 2008