She began her legal career in 1973, working in poverty law and representing welfare recipients, public housing residents, juveniles, and the mentally ill, among others. From 1984 to 1989 she was a lecturer at the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, teaching the mandatory course on law for M.S.W. students. She has also taught law as an adjunct professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and at the University of Michigan School of Law. She has a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and an M.A (Sociology) and J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.