Professor Alina Ball is the founding director of the Social Enterprise Clinic at Berkeley Law. This in-house corporate law clinic is a unique blend of transactional lawyering with an eye towards critically examining issues of racial and social justice. Her research explores the intersection of transactional lawyering, economic justice, and social movements.
In 2018, Alina was honored with the AALS Shanara Gilbert Award acknowledging her commitment to teaching and advancing racial and social justice through clinical legal education. She was recognized as a 2015-16 AALS Bellow Scholar for her corporate representation and collaborations to increase access to safe drinking water in rural communities. She currently serves as the co-chair of the AALS Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest.
Prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley Law, she was the Bion M. Gregory Chair in Business Law at UC Law SF and faculty co-director of the Center for Racial and Economic Justice. Before her career in academia, Alina was a corporate associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP, in San Francisco and Washington, DC, where her practice focused on representing private and public companies in debt, venture capital, private equity, and M&A transactions. She received her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. from UCLA School of Law, with a specialization in Critical Race Studies, and B.A. degree from Wellesley College, majoring in Mathematics and Spanish, with a concentration in Latin American Studies.
She is actively engaged in community work and is honored to serve on the Public Advocates board.