Savannah R. Blackwell

• Savannah gained valuable courtroom experience early on in her career, working in the office of the San Francisco Public Defender. After leaving the public defender’s office, her work in the criminal arena helped free two people wrongfully accused of attempted homicide and resulted in the dismissal of a murder charge against another.
• In the civil arena, Savannah has litigated issues concerning free speech and the free exercise of religion, civil and consumer rights, class action, breach of contract, and employment law. She also has experience conducting workplace investigations for public agencies and institutions. For several years, she represented a publishing company in its effort to mail copies of its criminal justice magazine to county jail inmates. This work covered all stages of civil litigation, including authorship of a successful brief to the United States Supreme Court. It also provided her with the opportunity to serve second chair in a federal district court trial.
• Before becoming an attorney, she was an award-winning journalist who covered government and politics for 17 years. She worked as a news reporter and political writer for various newspapers and media outlets, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Daily News, and the Daily Journal legal newspaper. She won more than 20 national, state and local awards. In addition, she taught journalism to college students at San Francisco State University.
• Savannah received her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. She also graduated first in the class from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism (earning a M.S. with Honors) and was awarded a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, the “highest award the school bestows on a graduating student.” She earned a B.A. in English Literature with High Distinction from the University of Virginia, where she was named an Echols Scholar and Robert C. Byrd Scholar, and awarded membership in Phi Beta Kappa, SigmaTau Delta, and the Golden Key International Honour Society.
• Savannah is the “Writing Tips” columnist for the Bulletin, a monthly publication of the Bar Association of San Francisco that is distributed electronically to more than 8,000 attorney-members. She is admitted to practice in California, the United States District Court, Eastern District of California, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.