Biography
Lorraine Lopez is a Chicago native and has been working on tenants’ rights issues since 2005. As a former public housing resident, she has lived experience with housing instability and the challenges of participating in low-income housing programs.
Lorraine began her legal career in 2005 as an Equal Justice Works fellow at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (now LAF) where she provided legal representation, community legal education, and outreach programs for participants in the Housing Choice Voucher Program. In 2007, she moved to Los Angeles to work for Eviction Defense Network (EDN) where she was introduced to the specific legal challenges of low-income renters in Los Angeles before taking a position at Inner City Law Center in 2009. At ICLC, Lorraine was part of the first Los Angeles Shriver Housing Pilot Project team and eventually became a Supervising Attorney for their Homelessness Prevention Project.
From 2017-2019 Lorraine was a Supervising Attorney for the Coordinated Attorney Team at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (“NLSLA”). Lorraine led a team of 10+ attorneys who practice in a wide range of poverty law areas including housing, consumer rights, public benefits, homelessness prevention, re-entry and family law. In 2019 she joined Public Counsel as a Supervising Staff Attorney for the Homelessness Prevention Law Project, working specifically with the Shriver eviction defense program and coordinating the project’s other housing preservation work, including Stay Housed LA and Right to Counsel. Lorraine joined Western Center on Law and Poverty as a Senior Attorney in their Housing Team in 2021, with a focus on impact litigation and housing policy.