lbailey@publicjustice.net

Leslie A. Bailey is a Staff Attorney at Public Justice, where her practice focuses on consumers’ rights, including fighting abusive mandatory arbitration clauses and federal preemption defenses; civil rights; and challenges to unnecessary court secrecy.  She recently argued FIA Card Services v. Weaver, --- So.3d ----, 2011 WL 880294 (La. Mar. 15, 2011), in which the Louisiana Supreme Court held that a debt collector cannot enforce an arbitration award against a consumer who never agreed to arbitration; and Toe v. Cooper Tire, where she represents the Center for Auto Safety.  Leslie is proud to have been a member of the trial team in Hankin v. City of Seattle, a class action in federal court on behalf of nearly 200 people arrested in downtown Seattle in 1999 while protesting against the WTO. The trial resulted in a jury verdict that the city had violated the protesters’ Fourth Amendment rights, and the case settled for $1 million and significant injunctive relief.
 
Leslie has been counsel in several successful cases involving access to justice, including: 

• Carideo v. Dell, Inc. , 706 F.Supp.2d 1122 (W.D. Wash. 2009) (arbitration clause unenforceable where exclusive provider selected by corporation, National Arbitration Forum, had ceased administering consumer arbitrations). 
• Coneff v. AT&T Corp. , 620 F.Supp.2d 1248 (W.D. Wash. 2009) (class action ban in consumer contract unenforceable under Washington law with respect to nationwide class). 
• McKee v. AT&T Corp. , 191 P.3d 845 (Wash. 2008) (challenges to unconscionable arbitration clause in consumer contract not preempted by Federal Communications Act or Federal Arbitration Act). 
• Scott v. Cingular Wireless , 161 P.3d 1000 (Wash. 2007) (class action ban unconscionable). 
• O’Hara v. General Motors Corp. , 508 F.3d 753 (5th Cir. 2007) (compliance with federal regulatory option does not preempt injury victim’s claims that car side windows were defective) (as amicus).

Leslie has testified before subcommittees of the Judiciary Committees of both the Senate and House about unwarranted court secrecy. She has been a featured speaker on mandatory arbitration, opposing confirmation of arbitration awards in debt collection cases, and other consumers’ rights issues at conferences across the country. She is a co-author of the treatise Consumer Arbitration Agreements. Leslie is a member of the California bar and is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeals for the Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, and the Northern District of California. She is a member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, Consumer Attorneys of California, and the American Association for Justice. 
 
Leslie received her J.D. cum laude from the New York University School of Law in 2004, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow and Executive Editor of the N.Y.U. Review of Law and Social Change.  She graduated cum laude from Claremont McKenna College.