Lambda Legal Welcomes Carmina Ocampo as New Staff Attorney in Western Regional Office

(Los Angeles, CA, January 15, 2014) - Lambda Legal announced today Carmina Ocampo has joined the organization as staff attorney in its Western Regional Office in Los Angeles.

Ocampo comes to Lambda Legal from Asian Americans Advancing Justice (Advancing Justice - LA, formerly the Asian Pacific American Legal Center), the nation's largest legal and civil rights organization for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, where in 2008 she was awarded a Skadden Fellowship to conduct a workers' rights project focused on home care workers. At Advancing Justice-LA Ocampo conducted impact litigation and advocacy to advance workers' and immigrants' rights and racial justice. She was lead counsel for Advancing Justice - LA when it joined an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The combined lawsuit filed on behalf of 70 Filipino-American nurses harassed at work and barred from speaking Filipino languages earned a landmark settlement of nearly $1 million. Ocampo was also part of the civil rights coalition that filed an injunction against Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB1070.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for me to expand my advocacy and impact litigation work with a legal rights organization I have come to know and respect in my years at Advancing Justice-LA," Ocampo said. "I am delighted and honored to join Lambda Legal, to contribute my skills to this distinguished and highly accomplished legal team and to work for equal rights for LGBT and HIV-positive individuals and their families."

"We are very excited to welcome Carmina to Lambda Legal," said Jon W. Davidson, Legal Director and Eden/Rushing Chair at Lambda Legal. "Carmina has an impressive body of impact litigation and advocacy work on behalf of immigrant communities and vulnerable workers. These sectors are an increasingly important part of Lambda Legal's work, and we are thrilled that she has agreed join our legal team and bring that experience, commitment and significant track record of accomplishment to our work securing full equality for all."

Ocampo is actively involved in the community, receiving a "Community Advocate of the Year" award in 2012 from the Philippine American Bar Association. She is a board member of the Pilipino Workers' Center, former board member of the Philippine and Asian Pacific American Bar Associations, and a member of the National Lawyers Guild. Ocampo has volunteered at legal clinics to help formerly incarcerated individuals expunge their criminal records, to help low-income transgender people change their gender and names on documents, and to help undocumented immigrants apply for Deferred Action relief.

Ocampo received her J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, with a specialization in Critical Race Studies. During law school, Ocampo was a law clerk at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, co-chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Law Student Association, and an editor for the Asian Pacific American Law Journal and the Chicana/o Latina/o Law Review. She received her B.A. magna cum laude from UCLA. Prior to attending law school, she interned for the Nation magazine and various music and pop culture magazines. She was born in the Philippines and grew up in Los Angeles' Koreatown.