DAVID LASH
Managing Counsel for Pro Bono and Public Interest Services
O’Melveny & Myers LLP
David Lash, a leading lawyer in Los Angeles focused on advancing the public interest, is the architect and leader of O’Melveny & Myers’ reputed pro bono program. He has led the effort to use the law to preserve liberties, including civil rights, reproductive rights, housing rights and more.
During just the past year, Lash produced and had distributed to every lawyer in the county a 4.5 minute video, “Housing Justice Is Racial Justice,” that used well-known celebrity voices to urge the region’s lawyers to get involved in representing tenants facing the loss of their homes because doing so is the most urgent racial justice need in our community. This unique effort led to a significant upsurge in pro bono volunteer support. Lash also solidified during the past year his position as one of the founders and board members of the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance, a group he helped form in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, rallying the legal community to make a long-term commitment to fighting for racial justice by joining with the LFAA in identifying and combatting, through litigation, legislation and advocacy, the most destructive instances of system racism in the law.
Following the Dobbs decision, which overturned 50 years of precedent of protecting women’s reproductive freedoms, a case he helped bring to O’Melveny, Lash was asked to join three major efforts to continue the fights for those protections (programs started by the NY Attorney General, organizations across the state and the now-called Abortion Defense Network).
