Donald Specter
Senior Staff Attorney

Don joined the Prison Law Office in 1979 and was the Executive Director from 1984 to 2023. He has been lead counsel in numerous impact cases and has successfully argued cases at all levels in the California and federal courts, including successfully arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011) (holding the court-mandated population limit for California prisons was necessary to remedy violations of prisoners’ constitutional rights to adequate medical and mental health care) and Pa. Dep’t of Corr. v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206 (1998) (unanimously holding the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to state prisoners). Don created the US-European Criminal Justice Innovation Program which, in partnership with the Criminal Justice & Health Consortium at UC San Francisco, brings correctional leaders on facilitated tours of European prisons where they learn about innovative and humane approaches to sentencing, treatment and prison reform. He was a member of the Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Committee to Northern District of California and chair of the California State Bar’s Commission on Corrections. Don earned his B.A. in Economics from New College in Sarasota, Florida in 1974 and his J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1978. He was admitted to the California State Bar in November 1978.