Lisa B. Swaminathan '09

Ballard Spahr LLP, Counsel

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

As Pro Bono Counsel, Lisa B. Swaminathan oversees a program through which attorneys across the firm donate roughly 50,000 hours of free legal services each year to people in need of legal aid. She also chairs the firm's Pro Bono Committee. Lisa has advocated for the rights of individuals and families in need of legal services throughout her career, both as a litigator in private practice and as an attorney with legal non-profit organizations. As an attorney at Juvenile Law Center, Lisa worked to enforce and advance the rights of children and youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. She focused particularly on ending the imposition of costs and fines in the juvenile justice system, educating courts on the collateral consequences of juvenile justice involvement, ensuring youth access to counsel, and promoting permanency for older youth in the child welfare system. She served as a staff attorney in the Family Advocacy Unit of Community Legal Services, where she represented parents in child welfare cases and developed policies to support and maintain relationships among system-involved families. Before entering the nonprofit sector, Lisa was a litigator at Ballard Spahr, where she represented clients in commercial disputes and took part in many of the firm's most challenging pro bono cases. She was part of the team that successfully challenged Pennsylvania's widespread use of civil forfeiture, raising the standard of proof needed to confiscate property in the Commonwealth and expanding protections for property owners facing claims. While at Duke University School of Law, Lisa interned at The Women's Law Project where she handled a variety of matters involving harassment, Title IX compliance, privacy, and access to health care services.