Heather MacKay
Staff Attorney

Heather joined the Prison Law Office in 1992 with a grant to provide individual advocacy for people at newly-opened Pelican Bay State Prison. After 11 years as a PLO staff attorney, Heather opened her own practice representing indigent people in criminal appeals and writs, and in 2015 she received the Sixth District Appellate Program’s Gerald Z. Mayer Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy. Heather has continued to work part-time with PLO revising The California Prison and Parole Law Handbook and other resource materials, and sharing her expertise on the intersections between criminal law and prison law. She earned her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her J.D. at UC Berkeley. She was admitted to the California Bar in 1992.