Clara Slifkin, Secretary
Clara Slifkin has practiced criminal, civil, and administrative law in state, federal, and administrative courts in her four decades as an attorney in California. She began her legal career as a Los Angeles County deputy public defender. Subsequently, as a deputy attorney general, Ms. Slifkin represented state agencies in complex litigation and was appointed by former attorney general Dan Lungren to his ADR Advisory Committee. In March 2006, she was appointed as an administrative law judge, presiding over and frequently mediating special education cases with school districts and parents of children with special needs. In October of 2006, Chief Justice Ronald George presented her with the State Bar of California’s Public Lawyer of the Year Award. Since 2013, Clara has worked as an attorney mediator with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), where she also co-teaches at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine Law, DFEH-Straus Employment Mediation Clinic, which she co-founded and co-developed. Clara was the first government attorney elected to represent Los Angeles County on the California State Bar Board of Governors. Prior to her term on the Board, she served the Bar as chair of the Executive Committees for the Council of Section Chairs and the Public Law Section. Clara also has served on the Government Lawyers Task Force, Board of Governors for the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, and board of directors of the Foundation of the State Bar of California. Ms. Slifkin works in the Dispute Resolution Division’s Los Angeles office. Because of her outstanding service on the committees of the City Club of Los Angeles, she received the 2015 Outstanding Women of the City Club Award.
