Ilyce Shugall, BASF member and Lawyer Referral and Information Service’s (LRIS) Lead Immigration Attorney, temporarily on staff to assist with the launch of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, was recently announced as a Silicon Valley Business Journal Woman of Influence.

Shugall has been instrumental in formalizing the role of the Lead Immigration Attorney as it relates the collaborative, an association of ten non-profit immigration groups including technical assistance groups, the University of San Francisco’s Immigration Clinic and the LRIS Lead Attorney to provide legal strategy and pro bono representation to recently arrived unaccompanied minors and families with children on the “surge” dockets at the immigration court.

Shugall’s expertise has been instrumental for the collaborative case review roundtables, trainings and analysis of ongoing policies regarding immigration court and EOIR (Executive Office of Immigration Review) policies.

She also is the Directing Attorney for Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto’s (CLS-EPA) Immigration Program. Since joining CLS-EPA in 2012, Shugall has doubled the size of its immigration program, serving more than 1,000 clients in 2014.