Nirali Beri is a Housing Justice Attorney in the Affirmative Litigation team. The Housing Justice Initiative protects marginalized Oakland tenants and preserves affordable housing in Oakland by enforcing tenants’ legal rights to safe, dignified, and healthy housing.

Prior to joining our office, Nirali was an eviction defense attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza for five years where she represented hundreds of tenants in Alameda County who faced unlawful evictions and rent increases that in some cases involved uninhabitable living conditions and harassment. Nirali has developed extensive knowledge of state and city housing laws, including Oakland’s ordinances during her tenure with Centro Legal de la Raza. She also worked on affirmative and complex civil litigation in close collaboration with a number of city attorney offices located in Alameda County.

Nirali received her law degree from UC Berkeley Law School, where she focused on social justice work. She received her bachelor’s degree in political science and environmental studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.  She was a Housing Clinical Student and Tenants’ Rights Workshop Leader at East Bay Community Law Center and assisted in the representation of a client on death row in the South through Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic. Nirali was an Economic Justice Law Clerk at Bay Area Legal Aid, a Fair Housing Tester at Asian Law Caucus, and a Coblentz Civil Rights Fellow at the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society.  Before law school, Nirali was a legal assistant at the American Civil Liberties Union – Racial Justice Project in New York.