Graduate Spotlight: Alexis Ballinger '23 Will Pursue a Career in ADR

Alexis Ballinger ’23 will work on a project to help incarcerated people get their prison sentences reduced before pursuing a career in Alternative Dispute Resolution.

This story is part of a series of profiles featuring some of this year’s outstanding law school graduates from UC Law San Francisco.

In her eight years working as a special education teacher and administrator before law school, Alexis Ballinger ’23 saw firsthand how the law affected her students’ lives, including those whose parents were imprisoned for offenses such as drug possession.

“Observing the inequities up close made me believe that law might be a way to change and make things better for future generations,” she said.

After graduating with her JD from UC Law San Francisco in May and taking the bar, Ballinger will spend three months helping incarcerated people in Alameda County get their prison sentences reduced. She’ll be working on a project for the nonprofit organization Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice in East Oakland thanks to a fellowship awarded by the Legal Services Funders Network.

“Many people don’t have access to this education, so I think it’s so important to help people who need the law by using it in a way to benefit them,” she said.

Ballinger, who graduated with dual concentrations in Social Justice Lawyering and Civil Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), transferred to UC Law San Francisco from another school after her 1L year. She said she was drawn to UC Law SF because of its robust legal clinics and externship programs.

At UC Law SF, she participated in the Individual Representation Clinic and Social Enterprise & Economic Empowerment Clinic, which allowed her to interact directly with clients, research and write legal filings, argue in administrative law hearings, advise business clients on regulatory issues, and explore novel issues related to cannabis and clean energy laws.

“I think the clinics in general show a commitment by the university to educate students with hands-on training and valuable feedback to create practicing lawyers, not just people who can pass the bar,” she said.

Ballinger also served as a legal intern for the California Public Utilities Commission’s Administrative Law Judge Division and as a law clerk for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, where she worked on litigation challenging state bans on transgender youth participating in school sports.

Before attending law school, Ballinger earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Pacific Lutheran University and master’s degree in special education from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

She hiked the entire 2,600 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail over eight months in 2014 and 2015, and competed in the Iron Man World Championship in Hawaii in 2015, which included a grueling 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride, and 26.2-mile marathon run. She said accomplishing those feats helped give her the confidence and “mental toughness” to get through law school.

As for the future, Ballinger said she plans to pursue a career in the field of ADR because she enjoys helping parties get to the root of a problem and resolve disputes in an amicable manner. “I think there’s more satisfaction in having parties walk away and be satisfied with the outcome, instead of having one clear winner and loser, which is what happens with litigation.”

She added that her prior experience in special education, which often required her to advocate for her students, will continue to have a big impact on the way she views and practices the law, “I like to advocate for others, and I will always be an advocate.”