Sonia R. Carvalho

Carvalho specializes in land use, ethics and government law at Best Best & Krieger, where her duties include work as the city attorney for Santa Ana, San Bernardino and Pomona and special counsel to other local government agencies.

She’s been with the firm since she graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1992. She was one of the first Latina attorneys there at the firm and, seven years later, one of the first minority women promoted to partner. Carvalho has launched Best Best & Krieger’s new Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Committee to aid in ensuring equal opportunities for all.

“I’ve reached the point in my career where I feel it is our responsibility as a firm to be reflective of the communities we serve as clients,” she said. One young Latina whom Carvalho got to know and mentor several years ago worked as an in-house intern at the Santa Ana city attorney’s office. Now she’s the city attorney of Tracy. “It’s so nice to see young Latinas rise,” Carvalho said.

Santa Ana was hit hard by the pandemic, and Carvalho helped guide the spending of the $28 million in CARES Act funding it received. “The city manager got us together to brainstorm and we decided to do something a little different from all the other rental assistance programs out there,” she said. “I could see there were two interests: landlords and tenants. So what if we offered to pay tenants’ rent to landlords directly if they would give their renters a discount?” Carvalho and others worked with the largest multifamily housing complexes in the zip codes where Covid-19 rates were the greatest.

“It was overwhelmingly successful and popular and a great way to build community,” she said.

Carvalho also works with Santa Ana on Orange County’s chronic homelessness problem, helping guide it through a protracted legal dispute while working to make sure the city and its neighbors meet the shelter and enforcement standards set by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in the pending litigation. “Judge Carter held a court session in the Santa Ana City Council chambers. We have seen a significant increase in shelters and mental health services,” Carvalho said.

— John Roemer