Valerie (she/her/hers) has been an attorney at Towards Justice since April 2020. Her practice is focused on all forms of employee representation and advocacy, including forced labor, wage theft, antitrust violations, and discrimination. Valerie has also litigated several large-scale cases brought by warehouse and meatpacking workers seeking to enforce public health guidance within their workplaces and is currently litigating a case against the Colorado Department of Corrections challenging its use of involuntary labor despite the blanket ban of involuntary servitude contained in the Colorado Constitution.
Valerie also supports advocates, workers, and organizers seeking policy reform at the state level, including the groundbreaking 2021 Colorado Agricultural Workers Bill of Rights, which ensured that the 40,000 farmworkers across Colorado are entitled to things like water, shade, breaks, minimum wage, organizing rights, and overtime pay.
Prior to her work at Towards Justice, Valerie worked at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), where she was an attorney in the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Branch from 2014-2020. While at the NLRB, Valerie briefed dozens of cases in United States Courts of Appeals and presented oral arguments in the Second, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, and DC Circuits. Prior to the NLRB, Valerie was a litigation associate at the international law firm Jones Day, where she handled all aspects of pretrial and trial procedures in state and federal courts, including motion practice, complex discovery, and the preparation of witnesses for trial and arbitration proceedings.
Valerie clerked for Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Andre Davis on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Valerie is a graduate of American University and Howard University School of Law, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Howard Law Journal and was an executive board member of OUTLaw, the American Constitution Society, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Prior to law school, Valerie was a press officer at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer rights organization.
Valerie serves as a mentor for the Appellate Project, the first national effort focused on empowering law students of color to pursue appellate work. She also serves as a moot court coach for the Howard University School of Law Moot Court Team, a role she has played for more than 10 years. In her free time, Valerie enjoys spending time with family, cosplay, camping, cats, roller derby, and textile art.
Bar admissions:
Colorado
Maryland
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits
U.S. District Courts of Colorado, Maryland, and the District of Columbia