Meet Our Team
Ms. Farrise Best has been an attorney for nearly 30 years since 1994. She holds a LL.M (Master of Laws) from Berkeley Law, a Juris Doctor from Golden Gate University, and a Bachelor’s of Science in Business from DePaul University. She is an accomplished Trial Lawyer who has handled complex multi-party injury and mass impact actions including Toxic exposures leading to cancer deaths, injurious pharmaceutical drugs, employee rights actions involving race & gender discrimination and harassment, medical and nursing home neglect and injury actions. She has been honored and recognized as among the top lawyers in California as a SuperLawyer™ in both Northern and Southern California for many years and nationwide. She has served as a Board member of many organizations including Equal Rights Advocates, The Impact Fund, Consumer Attorneys of California, and more locally, The Charles Houston Bar Association.
Ms. Chandler is an attorney, change manager, and social entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience effecting significant criminal justice reform. Ms. Chandler received a JD from Harvard Law School, a Master’s in Philosophy in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in Rhetoric from University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Chandler’s innovations include leading numerous successful bipartisan California state criminal justice reform efforts, including creation of the compassionate release process and statutory structure nationally, and creation of a historic reparations program for sterilization abuse in California women’s prisons, and co-founding Critical Resistance and Justice Now, seminal prison reform organizations. Most recently she founded and directed the Bay Area Legal Incubator, a project of the Alameda County Bar Association. She has served as faculty at Berkeley Law, Northeastern University School of Law, and Golden Gate University School of Law. She is the recipient of the prestigious Auburn Lives of Commitment Award Celebrating Women of Moral Courage, the ABA Pro Bono Publico Award, the California Women Lawyers Fay Stender Award, and the inaugural Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award.
Mr. Roberts is a graduate of The University of Texas at San Antonio with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration, Our Lady of the Lake University with a Master’s in Business Administration, and Golden Gate University School of Law with a Doctor of Jurisprudence and Specialization Certificate in Business Law (with distinction). Mr. Roberts transitioned into the office after serving as General Counsel to the Peralta Community College District. He previously served as Chief of Staff to the Chancellor and Director of Employee Relations and Diversity Programs. Mr. Roberts has received both the Rose Elizabeth Bird Award – Professionalism and Integrity and the Paul S. Jordan Achievement Award- Service and Contribution. Mr. Roberts has also completed Doctoral work at Saint Mary’s College of California.
Otis Bruce Jr. retired in 2022 as Assistant District Attorney (No. 2) in the Marin County District Attorney’s Office where he worked to expand the Marin County Social Justice program Mr. Bruce has a law degree from New College of California School of Law and is a graduate of Merritt College in Oakland with a degree in Administration of Justice. He also earned a criminal justice administration degree with a minor in Spanish from San Jose State University. He is a current Board Director for the California District Attorney Association (CDAA) Institute for Education and Research, a former CDAA Board Director, and an advisor to the California Lawyer’s Association Criminal Law Executive Committee. He is also the past President of the Marin County Bar Association and co-founder of the Bay Area Black Prosecutors Association.
Mr. Lewis enters the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office with 30 years of professional law enforcement experience in planning and managing complex investigations, training and tactical field operations. Most recently, Mr. Lewis served as Captain of Police for the Oakland Police Department Bureau of Field Operations for Area 5. He also served as Special Operations Division Commander and Criminal Investigations Division Commander as well as Bureau of Field Operations 1 Watch Commander, Internal Affairs Administrative Commander and Patrol Division Watch Commander. He is a graduate of Chabot College with an Associate of Arts in Education, a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Arts in Leadership from St. Mary’s College.
Demarris Evans is a Senior Assistant District Attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office where she heads the Civil Rights Bureau housing the following units: Post-conviction, resentencing and re-entry, conviction integrity, racial justice, criminal record expungements, capital case litigation, restorative justice, public accountability and grand jury. Previously, she was the Managing Attorney for the Collaborative Courts and Mental Health Units of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. She worked as a trial attorney for the San Francisco Public Defender for over 20 years where she also led the Racial Justice Committee. She served on the attorney panel responsible for calibration and scoring of the California Bar Exam for over 15 years. Demarris was a member of the San Francisco Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Task Force where she chaired the Bias and Policing Subcommittee and participated in San Francisco Police Department Executive Sponsor Workgroups designed to implement law enforcement reform. She has also been on the faculty at San Francisco State University in the Department of Race and Resistance Studies. Her focus is on racial equity, power and privilege.
In addition to her legal practice, Demarris is engaged in facilitation, training and teaching in areas of restorative justice, racial equity, mindfulness, healing and human potential. She is a graduate of the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College, the Warrior One Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training Program and the Dedicated Practitioners Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where she began her Vipassana practice in the early 2000’s and now sits on it’s Board of Directors. She is a co-facilitator for the Law and Social Change Jam offered by YES! and the Effective Communications Across Differences Seminars offered by the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society. Demarris obtained her Juris Doctorate degree from Santa Clara University and her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from University of California, Berkeley.