John Affeldt

John Affeldt is a Managing Attorney at the non-profit civil rights law firm, Public Advocates in San Francisco. At Public Advocates, John has focused on educational equity issues, among other matters serving as a lead counsel on Williams v. California--a landmark challenge to California's failure to provide equal educational opportunities throughout its public schools which was successfully settled in 2004. Working with grassroots, community-based groups, researchers, and others, John is a founding member of a collaboration of groups building a statewide grassroots policy advocacy campaign to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for low-income students of color. John was recognized as a California Attorney of the Year in 2005 by the California Lawyer Magazine for his work on the Williams case, and again by the Recorder legal daily in 2010 for his work on Renee v. Duncan which struck down a U.S. Dept. of Education regulation allowing teachers in training to be disproportionately assigned to low-income and high minority schools. John has also been designated one of top Plaintiffs lawyers in America by LawDragon Magazine. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1990 and Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 1984. Before coming to Public Advocates, John clerked for the Hon. William M. Hoeveler in Federal District Court in Miami, assisting with the trial of Manuel Noriega. Recently, John became a member of the Emery Unified School Board, the district in which he lives and where his son attends school.