Meredith Desautels

Directing Attorney

Meredith Desautels is a Directing Attorney at the Youth Law Center. Her work focuses on ending the criminalization of childhood and replacing youth incarceration with positive, developmentally-appropriate supports that are rooted in family and community. In partnership with the Young Women's Freedom Center, Meredith's work is grounded in movement-based legal strategies that seek to build power within directly impacted families and communities. Prior to joining the Youth Law Center, Meredith was a Leading Edge Fellow funded by the Rosenberg Foundation. As a Leading Edge Fellow, she worked at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and Bay Area Legal Aid, representing young people impacted by the juvenile delinquency system. Prior to that, she was a Skadden Foundation fellow and then staff attorney at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, and she served as a law clerk to the Honorable John T. Noonan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Education:

J.D. U.C. Berkeley School of Law, 2008
B.A. Princeton University, 2004

BAR ADMISSION:
California