Our Team

Desiree Almendral works in External Affairs at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC). She was previously Lead Commercial Counsel, Ads at Meta, Senior Commercial Counsel at Yohana, Corporate Counsel at Google, LLC, in-house counsel at Mozilla Corporation, and an associate at Greenberg Traurig LLP. Desiree grew up and raised her daughter in San Francisco’s Mission District where, before attending law school, she worked for nonprofits, including Instituto Familiar de la Raza and Jamestown Community Center. She served on the Jamestown Community Center board from 2008 – 2016. She received her law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law and her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley after attending City College of San Francisco.

Judy Appel has over 20 years of experience as an Executive Director of several nonprofits and two terms on the Berkeley Unified Board of Education. She was an active advocate for LGBTQ headed families. She received her BA in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, then later earned a law degree and Masters in Planning. When she was younger, Judy lived in Nicaragua, England and Sweden. She was hit by a car as a pedestrian in 2019 and is now living with a disability. Judy and her wife, Alison, have two grown offspring.

Judge Charles Crompton sits on the San Francisco Superior Court, where he handles the Behavioral Health and Mental Health Diversion programs. He was appointed by former Governor Jerry Brown on December 12, 2014. Judge Crompton earned a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. He began his legal career as a law clerk for the Hon. Jane R. Roth of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. He then practiced intellectual property and antitrust litigation for 25 years, first at McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, then at Latham & Watkins. Judge Crompton left private practice in 2013 to establish and run a free legal clinic for underserved clients at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, a job he held until his appointment to the bench. He continues to serve on the Board of the GLIDE Legacy Fund. From 2009-2014, Judge Crompton served on the Board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area. In 2011-12, he served on the Pro Bono Task Force of the Legal Service Corporation, an independent nonprofit established by Congress to provide financial support for civil legal aid to low-income Americans. Currently, he serves on LSC’s Housing Task Force. He was awarded the State Bar of California’s President’s Pro Bono Service Award in 2014.

Shashi Deb is an adjunct faculty member at UC College of the Law, San Francisco, where she teaches Legal Writing and Research, Moot Court and Critical Studies. Prior to teaching, Shashi practiced intellectual property litigation at Cooley Godward and McCutchen Doyle (now Morgan Lewis) in their Silicon Valley and San Francisco offices. Shashi received her J.D. from UC College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law) in 1994 and her B.A. in Political Economy from UC Berkeley in 1991. Aside from her interest in legal education, Shashi is passionate about supporting access to higher education, building resources for mental health care, and reducing poverty in the Bay Area Area. She serves on the boards of the UC Berkeley Foundation, Tipping Point Community and Project Heal.

Margaret Hagan is the Executive Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford University, as well as lecturer at the Law School and d.school. She is a lawyer, and holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a DPhil from Queen’s University Belfast, an MA from Central European University, and an AB from University of Chicago. She specializes in the application of human-centered design to the legal system, including the development of new public interest technology, legal visuals, and policy design. Her research and teaching focuses on the development and evaluation of new interventions to make the legal system more accessible. Her blog is Open Law Lab.