hilary@levyvinick.com | LinkedIn | 510-318-7709
Se habla español. Biografía en español.
B.A. 2004 Yale University
J.D. 2012 University of Washington
Hilary Hammell is a tenacious litigator who believes in using the power of the law to secure economic and social justice for marginalized workers.
Hilary is fluent in Spanish, and her path to becoming a civil rights lawyer began in Honduras, where she taught in a village school and saw how gender discrimination operated as both a cause and effect of poverty. Hilary then became the International Legal Assistant for the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, where she contributed to litigation involving maternal mortality in Brazil and India, sex harassment in Ecuador, and access to contraception in the Philippines. In 2009 she won a full scholarship to the University of Washington School of Law based on her commitment to public service. While in law school, Hilary fell in love with employment law as an intern with the EEOC on a major case on behalf of immigrant farmworkers who had been sexually harassed, and she honed her legal Spanish interning in Mexico City with a feminist think tank at the Supreme Court of Mexico. She graduated from law school in the top 5% of her class, with high honors, Order of the Coif.
After law school, Hilary clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit for Judge Stephanie K. Seymour, the first female judge ever appointed to the Tenth Circuit, and the author of groundbreaking opinions on women’s rights issues. Before joining LVBH Hilary was a Skadden Fellow at Public Advocates and then represented low-income and Spanish-speaking clients at Open Door Legal in Bayview/Hunters Point and at Mallison & Martinez in Oakland.
Hilary can relate to her hard-working clients, having held countless minimum wage jobs prior to becoming an attorney. She has worked in restaurants in both the front and back of the house, in retail sales, as a hotel receptionist, a parking valet, and in the seasonal ski industry. She knows firsthand how hard it can be for workers living paycheck to paycheck to stand up against harassment or unfair treatment, and she is proud to devote her career fighting for clients brave enough to do so.
When she is not working or chasing her one-year-old son, Hilary enjoys reading mystery novels, surfing, and writing law review articles discussing how the justice system can advance women’s rights. She is the author of “Is the Right to Health a Necessary Precondition for Gender Equity?,” published in 2011 in the NYU Review of Law and Social Change, and “The International Human Right to Safe and Humane Treatment During Pregnancy and a Theory for its Application in U.S. Courts,” published in 2013 in Women’s Rights Law Reporter.
