Deborah H. Wald is the founder and managing partner at The Wald Law Group. A Certified Family Law Specialist, her work has evolved over the past 30-plus years from a part-time home-based family formation law practice to a multi-disciplinary full-service family law firm. Ms. Wald’s goal is to ensure that all individuals, families and children receive the highest quality legal protections available.

Ms. Wald has three specific areas of expertise: assisted reproduction law, parentage law and the law as it impacts lesbian, gay and transgender families. She has been involved in shaping California’s legislative approach to all three of these areas.

Ms. Wald also is an experienced criminal defense attorney, having started her career as a public defender and then gone on to focus on indigent criminal appeals. As a criminal defense lawyer she largely devoted her energy to protecting non-citizens facing deportation or exclusion from the United States as a result of their contacts with the criminal justice system. She also was a founder of Women Defenders, an organization providing professional, technical and social support for female criminal defense practitioners.

A teacher and author as well as a lawyer, Ms. Wald uniquely blends a practitioner’s experience with national and historical perspectives. Ms. Wald lives in San Francisco with her partner of almost 40 years and their big dog whose responsibility it is to make sure that no matter how busy Ms. Wald gets, she doesn’t forget to start each morning by taking a walk.