Brigit Greeson Alvarez

Brigit Greeson Alvarez is a Deputy County Counsel with the Board Liaison Division at the Office of the County Counsel (Los Angeles). In her current role, she advises the Board of Supervisors, County Departments, and County Commissions on a spectrum of legal issues including emerging areas of law.

Previously, Brigit worked as the Legal Director for St. John’s Community Health, the largest healthcare provider in South, Central and East Los Angeles. Prior to that, she was a Senior Attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). While at LAFLA, she was known for training advocates locally and nationwide on the complex and constantly evolving area of immigration law. She regularly published practice advisories with the American Immigration Lawyers Association while maintaining an active docket of family-based and removal defense immigration matters. Prior to LAFLA, Brigit was the principal attorney at her own boutique immigration law firm for nearly 11 years. She also collaborated in drafting several California state laws advancing the human rights of and increasing immigrants’ access to justice, including SB 873 (provision of legal services to unaccompanied minors); SB 674 (establishing statewide guidance for crime victims in securing “U” nonimmigrant visa certifications); and SB 6 (allocating funds for legal representation of immigrants in removal proceedings statewide). While in private practice, she was frequently invited to speak on immigration practices, policies and procedures by Univision/ KMEX Channel 34. An experienced appellate litigator, she secured a published decision in Rendon v. Holder, 764 F.3d 1077 (9th Cir. 2014); and successfully argued against the petition for en bank hearing. 782 F.3d 466 (9th Cir. 2015). In a sweeping victory for her client, the court adopted her argument for a universal framework for immigration judges to determine immigration consequences for criminal convictions. Brigit also proudly served as an Adjunct Professor of Law with the Asylum & Refugee Law Clinic at the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law alongside the Hon. Bruce J. Einhorn (Ret.). She is enormously proud that many of her former students and law clerks are now immigration practitioners. 

Brigit’s commitment to building community started as an undergraduate student at Columbia University where she majored in Spanish Language and Literature. She was active in the United Students of Color Council and was also a founding member of Queers of Color, which remains an active student group today. After graduating, she worked for the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society for the Eastern District of New York, and then as a health and wellness program coordinator for the Audre Lorde Project, a community organizing center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color communities. She later enrolled in the Epstein Program for Public Interest Law and Policy and the Critical Race Studies Programs at UCLA School of Law. 

Brigit’s proudest achievement is her 8-year old son Auggie. Auggie occasionally makes appearances at WLALA events and so far declines to be photographed. To his mom’s delight, he wore pink to the private WLALA screening of Barbie and surprised the entire theater with comments about the soundtrack.