All of us at the Equal Justice Society congratulate our colleague and friend Mona Tawatao, EJS Legal Director, on being recognized by the Western Center on Law & Poverty with its 2024 Mary Burdick Advocates Award!
Mona will receive the award at Western Center’s Garden Party on October 23 in Los Angeles.
The Western Center on Law & Poverty was formed in 1967 by a passionate group of attorneys and legal scholars from USC, UCLA and Loyola law schools who sought to create a unique organization, driven by the belief that low-income Californians deserve the finest possible legal representation before every institution that shapes their lives.
The award is named after Mary Burdick, who joined Western Center as a staff attorney in 1975, later serving as co-Senior Counsel, and ultimately, Executive Director. During her tenure, Mary argued two of the three U.S. Supreme Court cases ever argued by Western Center attorneys, Cabell v. Chavez-Salido, 454 U.S. 432 (1982), and Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552 (1988). Mary was instrumental in protecting Western Center from political attacks that threatened our funding and worked diligently to diversify Western Center’s revenue structure to ensure its sustainability and future, which included creating our annual fundraiser, Garden Party.
Before Mona joined EJS as Legal Director, she was a Senior Litigator at the Western Center where she pursued health, housing, land use, and civil rights litigation and advocacy throughout California. Learn more about Mona below.
In 2023, the Western Center presented EJS co-founder and past president Eva Paterson with its Earl Johnson Equal Justice Award.
ABOUT MONA TAWATAO
Mona Tawatao joined EJS as Legal Director of the Equal Justice Society in 2019. Mona directs EJS’s litigation and advocacy on behalf of and in partnership with community-based organizations and families to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and to fight race discrimination and promote equity in K-12 and higher education, the justice system, and other institutions.
Mona was previously Senior Litigator at the Western Center on Law & Poverty where she pursued health, housing, land use, and civil rights litigation and advocacy throughout California. She also worked for 22 years on housing and land use advocacy as a legal services attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County and then Legal Services of Northern California where she co-founded its Race Equity Project.
Mona’s honors include the 2024 José Rizal Social Justice Award from the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California (FBANC), EJS’s 2008 Racial Equity Award as a co-honoree with Bill Kennedy, and the 2007 Heber-Smith Award from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association for her housing and race equity advocacy.
Mona served on the EJS board of directors from July 2010 to January 2019 and was board chair from 2015 to 2017. She currently serves on the National Center for Youth Law board of directors as Vice President and co-leads APIs Rise Fund (Sacramento), a giving circle that supports community engagement and empowerment.
She received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 1986 and later served as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.