Pursuing Justice Podcast Episode 54: In Part Two of our episode on pro bono legal assistance for journalists, hear how ProJourn lawyers are fighting to ensure that Open Vallejo — a local independent newsroom in California — can shine a light on serious police misconduct and local government.
This podcast provides a behind-the-scenes exploration of pro bono and public interest legal work. These heartening stories are told from both clients’ and lawyers’ perspectives to showcase intimate portraits of lawyers helping those with limited access to justice.
Please note: CLE is not offered for listening to this podcast, and the views and opinions expressed within represent those of the speakers and not necessarily those of PLI.
FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Sarah Burns
Sarah Burns is an associate in the San Francisco office of Davis Wright Tremaine, where she practices media and First Amendment law. Sarah represents journalists and activists when they’re sued or subpoenaed, performs prepublication review for a range of fiction and nonfiction publications and productions, and has an active public records act practice.
Geoffrey King
Geoffrey King is an attorney and journalist with a focus on free expression, open government, press freedom, and privacy. From 2013–2016, Geoffrey led the global technology policy and advocacy program at the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent nonprofit organization that advocates for press freedom worldwide. Before that, he served as a First Amendment litigator, representing journalists, activists, and artists in free expression and open government matters. Geoffrey served as co-chair of the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Freedom of Information Committee from 2011–2015, and as an active member of the committee through 2017. SPJ NorCal received SPJ’s national Large Chapter of the Year, Diversity, and Chapter Communication awards in 2012. The chapter won national recognition for freedom of information advocacy in 2015 and 2016. Geoffrey received the John Gothberg Award for Meritorious Service from SPJ NorCal in 2015, and the chapter’s James Madison Freedom of Information Award (for founding Open Vallejo) in 2020. He served on SPJ’s national Freedom of Information Committee from 2023–2024.
From 2011–2022, Geoffrey taught privacy law at UC Berkeley, where he also taught courses on the intersection of media and social change, as well as on media law and the First Amendment. Geoffrey served as a 2021–2022 John S. Knight Community Impact Fellow at Stanford University, where he is also a non-residential fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. From 2013–2014 he served as an advisor for a Judicial Guidebook on Law Enforcement Searches and Surveillance of Journalists by the University of Southern California Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic, and from 2013–2015 he served as a member of UNESCO’s Digital Security and Press Protection Advisory Committee.
A writer and photojournalist, Geoffrey’s work has appeared in the Guardian, New York Magazine, Harvard Nieman Reports, El Pais, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Mother Jones, and on PBS. Geoffrey is a Vallejo native and a graduate of Vallejo public schools. He attended Diablo Valley Community College before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his B.A. with Highest Distinction. He holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School.
Sima Sarrafan
Sima Sarrafan is Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft’s Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs, where she has worked in a variety of capacities, including supporting commercial marketing and consumer businesses and conducting internal investigations. She co-founded ProJourn along with colleagues at Microsoft and DWT and currently co-chairs the ProJourn Advisory Committee. Sarrafan has been active in pro bono legal support and has been twice named Pro Bono Volunteer of the year by Microsoft.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Sarrafan was a Partner at Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo LLP, where her practice focused on intellectual property and general litigation; served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney at the Office of International Affairs at the Department of Justice; and was an associate attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine in communications and media law practice. In addition to her work at Microsoft and with ProJourn, Sarrafan served for approximately six years on the Board of Directors of the Bellevue School District, where she served as President for two years before completing her term. She graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in Economics and earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School, and has taught at Harvard College, Roger Williams School of Law, and Seattle University School of Law.
