David Washington L’15
David graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida in 2009. There, when he wasn’t in the library studying or at work washing dishes, David was competing in marathons and directing a free after-school program at Gainesville’s Dignity Project.
Upon graduation David joined the Peace Corps as a youth development volunteer in San Juancito, Honduras. He trained teachers, assisted in vaccine drives, and taught health, gender awareness, and professional development courses to Honduran youth. He also helped procure musical instrument donations for the San Juancito Foundation and taught trumpet classes to children in town.
David’s work in Honduras was done in the shadow of a coup d’etat and rapidly escalating violence. His experiences with youth and violence in the U.S. and in Honduras influenced his decision to work with the Seneca Family of Agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area upon returning to the United States. As a Family Support Counselor, he worked with children diverted from the juvenile justice system and their families, focusing on their strengths in order to create stable environments where the children could thrive without state intervention.
David served on the boards of two of Penn Carey Law’s student-run pro bono projects: the Prisoners’ Legal Education and Advocacy Project and the Penn Carey Law Immigrant Rights Project. He founded and served with Tamara Freilich as co-President of a student group: Penn Carey Law Defenders of the Accused, Detained, and Incarcerated; he was also elected to be an Executive Editor of the Journal of Law and Social Change.
During his first summer of law school, David worked at the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles, where he assisted in litigation and community organizing surrounding issues of police brutality, immigrant detention, and mental health courts. During his second summer, he worked at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he assisted in indigent defense in felony cases. After graduation, David worked as a fellow at the Federal Defenders of San Diego before moving to Puerto Rico to clerk at the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.
Thereafter, beginning in 2017, David worked as a Civil Rights Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL, where he litigated class action lawsuits against the Alabama Department of Corrections.
In 2019, David joined Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai, LLP, a nationally renowned civil rights and public interest law firm headquartered in the Los Angeles area. David is currently a partner at Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai, LLP, where he specializes in civil rights litigation and tries cases related to police misconduct, prisoners’ rights, labor rights, and gender and racial discrimination.