Lena Silver
Director of Policy & Administrative Advocacy
Lena Silver is the Director of Policy and Administrative Advocacy at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, where she has worked since 2015. She initially practiced housing law, and later shifted her focus to access to public benefits, including Department of Public Social Services and Social Security benefits.
She currently supervises the public benefits, workers’ rights, and Bringing Families Home teams. In 2021, Lena filed the case Hunger Action Los Angeles, et al v. County of Los Angeles et al, on behalf of a harmed client and several community organizations, to enforce food stamp applicants’ rights to receive timely emergency assistance. After filing the case, the County went from processing 50% of applications on time to 98%. In 2021 Lena also launched the Benefits Access for Immigrants (BAILA) Los Angeles Network (www.bailanetwork.org), a collaboration between benefits enrollers, outreach workers and legal aid to increase immigrant access to public benefits in the face of public charge fears and other barriers. Lena is deeply committed to raising up the voices of low-income communities whom we serve through direct client services, and fighting on their behalf’s for systemic change.
Lena came to NLSLA after completing a fellowship at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, and a clerkship at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. She received her bachelor’s degree with honors from UC Berkeley in 2008, and her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2013.