Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi, Esq.

(She/Her)

National Advisory Board Member | Chair

Cities for CEDAW | San Diego County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls

Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi is a poverty and civil rights attorney. As an immigrant, Parisa actively represents immigrants, minoritized communities, and low-income families in civil rights, race equity, and government transparency cases. She also provides Know-Your-Rights training to activists, tenants, and minoritized communities.

In addition to practicing law full-time, since 2019 Parisa has served as an adjunct law professor at University of San Diego School of Law where she teaches the law school’s Poverty Law course.

Parisa serves on the National Advisory Board for Cities for CEDAW.  She is also an appointed Commissioner on the San Diego County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, serves as the Commission’s Chair, and served as Chair of the United Nations CEDAW Committee from 2019-2022. She is a founding member of the California CEDAW Challenge Team, and served as lead in drafting San Diego County’s recently passed CEDAW ordinance. She also serves as a volunteer member of the California Commission on Access to Justice Pro Bono Coordinating Committee. She served a three-year appointment to the California State Bar’s Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services and the Equal Justice Works National Advisory Committee.    

Previously, she represented low-income families in eviction and public benefit cases as a staff attorney at Legal Services of Northern California under President Obama’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program; served as a managing attorney for Legal Services of Northern California; as San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program’s pro bono manager and supervising attorney, where she oversaw HIV/AIDS and unhoused veteran cases; and as a senior attorney at Disability Rights California where she spearheaded systemic litigation asserting the rights of unhoused individuals and children with disabilities during the pandemic.