Meet Emily

Emily Galvin Almanza is an award-winning author, public defender, and the co-founder and executive director of Partners for Justice, a nonprofit creating a collaborative model of public defense that empowers defenders nationwide. Since launching in 2018, the organization has eliminated more than 12,000 years of incarceration and connected tens of thousands of people to vital support. Emily is the author of The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America (Crown, 2026) and the middle-grade novel Andromeda Diaz and the Reasonable Doubt (Ten Speed Press, 2026). Andromeda Diaz for the Defense, the second book in the series, comes out in the fall of 2027.

Before founding Partners for Justice, Emily represented clients at the LA County Public Defender, the Santa Clara County Public Defender, and the Bronx Defenders. She also worked with the Stanford Three Strikes Project, where she was among the first attorneys to seek relief for people serving life sentences under California's reformed law. She clerked for the Honorable Thelton Henderson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School, she received the Deborah Rhode Prize for public interest work and was named one of the ABA's Top 40 Young Lawyers in 2017. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, and TIME.