Leah Spero
Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Litigation and Courts
Bio
Leah Spero has extensive appellate experience as a litigator and a court staff attorney. For the past decade, Leah has represented clients in civil and criminal appeals in the California Supreme Court, California Courts of Appeal, and the Ninth Circuit. In her civil cases, Leah has successfully handled a diverse range of issues including employment, tort, constitutional law, anti-SLAPP, intellectual property, and trusts and estates. In her criminal cases, Leah has succeeded in having several clients’ convictions reversed or sentences reduced and obtaining reversal of a nearly $1 billion restitution order.
Leah previously worked as a law clerk and a staff attorney at the Ninth Circuit and has since served as an Appellate Lawyer Representative to the court. Leah started her career at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, where she litigated both trial and appellate cases. While a law student at UC Law SF, Leah externed for Justice Janice Rogers Brown on the California Supreme Court and worked on appeals with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
In addition to directing the California Appellate Advocacy Program, Leah supervises students in the UC Law SF Appellate Project, teaching them how to brief and argue cases before the Ninth Circuit. Her students have successfully challenged orders of removal in several immigration cases and won reversals in civil rights lawsuits.
Leah is a member of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers; an advisory member and past Chair of the California Lawyers Association’s Committee on Appellate Courts; and a member of the Association’s Amicus Committee.