BROOKE HARRIS
Brooke Harris, Board of Supervisors At-Large
Brooke Harris is the Executive Director of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, where she leads a statewide effort to ensure that all young people in California have access to excellent legal representation, receive fair and equitable treatment in the courts, and be provided with credible, trauma-informed, and community-supported alternatives to incarceration that foster success. Prior to joining PJDC, she was the Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Visiting Clinical Faculty at Loyola Law School. At Loyola, Brooke taught Juvenile Delinquency Law and Procedure and Advanced Criminal Litigation Skills, in addition to supervising clinical law students representing youth in delinquency court in Los Angeles County. Prior to that, she served as a public defender in Contra Costa County for five years and held a fellowship in Post-Disposition Reentry with the Gault Center, focusing on the civil legal needs of youth returning to the community after a local or state commitment in a juvenile facility.
Brooke currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Youth Justice Committee of the California Child Welfare Council. Brooke also serves as faculty with the Independent Forensic Gang Expert College, a project of the Center of Juvenile Law and Policy at Loyola Law School that trains formerly gang involved people to become experts in court. Brooke has trained attorneys in California and nationally on issues including racial justice, youth gang involvement and detention advocacy. From 2018-2020, she served on the Executive Steering Committee with the Board of State and Community Corrections for the Youth Reinvestment Grant. She earned her B.A. from Colby College and JD from UC Davis School of Law (King Hall).