Oscar Espino-Padron

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Keith Rushing
National Communications Strategist
(757) 897-2147
krushing@earthjustice.org

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Oscar Espino-Padron is a senior attorney in the Community Partnerships Program, and is based in our Los Angeles office.

Oscar graduated from UCLA School of Law in 2011 and completed his undergraduate studies at UCLA in 2007, in addition to undergraduate fellowship work at Princeton University in 2006.

Prior to joining Earthjustice, Oscar served as a staff attorney at the Wage Justice Center in Los Angeles, where he litigated direct and class action cases on behalf of low-wage workers and represented the California Labor Commissioner in the enforcement of decisions related to California labor code violations, including bringing actions for corporate misappropriation, successor and fraudulent transfer.

In 2012, Oscar was awarded a fellowship by the Initiative for Public Interest Law at Yale to develop a mechanic’s lien litigation project, an innovative approach to address the economic exploitation experienced by the day laborer community that has served as a model for legal advocates in California.

Oscar’s entry into healthy communities work and working with environmental justice groups stems from his personal experience growing up in Long Beach and Wilmington, California, where he continues to witness first-hand the serious health impacts on his family and peers. Oscar’s dedication to public interest law and advocacy drives him to address the negative environmental consequences that far too often ripple through low-income and minority communities that lack the mobility to escape environmental poverty created by industry when government is either unable or unwilling to act.

The Latest from Oscar Espino-Padron

Kids play soccer near the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, Calif.
September 8, 2022

How Environmental Justice Advocates Dismantled the Oil Industry’s Prized Pollution “Reduction” Program In Los Angeles

A disaster of an experiment with pollution trading is coming to an end.

March 19, 2021

In the News: The Guardian

The Citizen Regulators Taking on Big Polluters When The EPA Won’t

“Citizen suits are designed to wake up slumbering agencies and give them a chance to do their job. It’s an important accountability tool that allows communities to hold polluters accountable when regulatory agencies are unwilling to act or lack political courage.”

View of the Long Beach skyline from Hilltop Park, in Signal Hill, Long Beach, California.
September 9, 2016

Long Beach Residents Want to Dump Their Current Waste System

The city of Long Beach, California, is falling behind the rest of the state and the nation in transitioning to a zero-waste future.
January 26, 2016

Comunidad Tiene Pleito Con Junta Local de Agua Sobre Contaminante Rastro

La ciudad de Brawley ya es una de las comunidades de color más agobiadas en California.
Plans to reopen a beef slaughterhouse in Brawley, Calif., could worsen local water quality.
January 26, 2016

Community Has a Beef with Local Water Board Over Polluting Slaughterhouse

The largely Latino community of Brawley, California, is already exposed to a lot of pollution, but plans to reopen a beef slaughterhouse could make local water quality even worse.
Oil field pumpjacks in Kern County, California.
December 17, 2015

Central Valley Board Continues to Mix Oil and Water

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board opted not to stop a corporation from tainting groundwater with fracking waste until 2018.