The Cliff Gardner Team

• Cliff Gardner
• Catherine White
• Lazuli Whitt
• Luz C. Valverde

Catherine White
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Catherine White has specialized in post-conviction representation since 1999. She received a Bachelor of Arts in History with honors from the University of San Francisco and her Juris Doctor from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1997.

Honors include:

• Graduated Cum Laude
• Academic Honors, 1994-1997
• Law Review, 1995-1997
• Moot Court Case Counsel, 1996
• "Advocate of the Year" Award, Advanced Moot Court Competition, 1996

Internships include:

• Judicial Intern for Justice Daniel M. Hanlon, First District Court of Appeal, 1996
• Family Court Mediator, Alameda County Superior Court, 1997

Publications:

"Survey of 1996 Nonprofit Case Law," University of San Francisco Law Review, Spring, 1997, pp. 617-663.

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Lazuli Whitt
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Lazuli Whitt has been been associated with the firm since 2002.  She received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Lewis & Clark College in Portland Oregon in 1995.  While attending Lewis & Clark, she spent two semesters abroad in Kenya and Ecuador.  Lazuli received her Juris Doctor from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 2002.

Honors include:

• Graduated Magna Cum Laude
• McAuliffe Honor Society, 1999-2002
• Law Review, 2000-2002
• CALI Award for Excellence in Torts, Civil Procedure, Property, Wills and Trusts, and Death Penalty Law
• Research Assistant to Professor Peter Jan Honingsberg (researching juvenile death penalty law), 2002
• Queen's Bench Agnes O'Brien Smith Scholarship
• Douglas Raskin Memorial Scholarship

Internships include:

• United States District Court, Northern District of California, Judge Claudia Wilken, 2001
• The Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center, 2001, 2000
• Center for Capital Assistance, 2001
• Habeas Corpus Resource Center, 2000

Publications:

"The California Death Penalty: Prosecutors' Use of Inconsistent Theories Plays Fast and Loose with the Courts and the Defendants," 36 University of San Francisco Law Review, Summer, 2002, pp. 853-906 (co-authored with Professor Steven F. Shatz).

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Luz C. Valverde
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Luz has been associated with the firm since 2008. Before then Luz was with the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s office as a Capital Law Clerk on complex and high profile death penalty trials.

Luz received her Bachelor of Arts with honors in Chicano Studies from University of California at Berkeley in 2002. Luz received her Juris Doctorate from University of California School of Law at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) in 2005. Prior to becoming an attorney, Luz enjoyed a 12-year career as an American Sign Language interpreter in the fields of education and mental health.

Honors include:

• Boalt Hall Bridge Fellow, 2005
• Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, Editor in Chief 2003-2004
• Berkeley Law Foundation Phoenix Fellow, 2002-2003
• Teaching and Curriculum Committee Student Representative, 2002-2003
• Honors Thesis: Embodied Disruptions: Intersectionality in Constructions of Race, Disability & Gender, 2002
• Rhodes and Margaret B. Trussell Human Services Scholarship 1998-2003

Internships include:

• Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, 2005
• National Center for Lesbian Rights, 2005
• San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (exclusive work on same-sex marriage cases), 2004
• Protection and Advocacy, Inc., 2003
• Third Woman Press, 2001

Activities:

• East Bay La Raza Lawyers Association, Board Member 2006-2008
• Marriage Equality, “Children of LGBT Parents” Outreach Director, 2006-2007
• California Attorneys for Criminal Justice & California Defenders
• Association Capital Case Defense Seminar, Volunteer, 2007

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