Overview
Gabriel Sandoval is a partner at Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo where he represents universities, community colleges, school districts, charter school management organizations, municipalities, non-profit organizations, and other public and private employers in a wide range of matters, including all aspects of employment and education law and compliance with federal and state civil rights laws.
As part of his statewide law practice, Mr. Sandoval serves as a Title IX Hearing Officer, Appellate Authority, and Investigator for private and public K-12 and postsecondary educational institutions. Mr. Sandoval is also a seasoned workplace investigator who conducts high-profile, politically sensitive investigations for public and private clients involving complaints of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and other types of workplace misconduct; reviews and revises policies to ensure compliance with anti-discrimination laws; and provides anti-discrimination and sexual harassment prevention trainings. Sandoval also represents and provides strategic advice and counsel to clients facing investigations conducted by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, and other civil rights enforcement agencies.
Prior to joining AALRR, Mr. Sandoval served in President Barack Obama’s Administration as Senior Counsel in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education—the largest office of the federal government focused exclusively on the enforcement of civil rights compliance in our nation’s educational institutions. As a member of OCR’s key management team, Mr. Sandoval worked with the Assistant Secretary and other senior staff in drafting and issuing national policy guidance and managing all aspects of complex, statewide complaints and compliance reviews, which resulted in resolution agreements benefiting students across the nation under Title VI, Title IX, and other federal civil rights laws. While in the Obama Administration, Mr. Sandoval also served as Senior Advisor and Director of Policy at the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.
A graduate of Columbia University School of Law where he was a Human Rights Fellow, Mr. Sandoval started his legal career as a law clerk to Hon. Carlos Moreno, then U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California, after which he joined one of the nation's most distinguished law firms, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, as an employment law associate. Mr. Sandoval received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University with Departmental Honors.
Mr. Sandoval served as the immediate past Chair of the California Civil Rights Council (formerly the Fair Employment and Housing Council). He is an Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) member and Title IX Hearing Officer Certificate Holder as well as an Association of Workplace Investigators (AWI) Member and Certificate Holder. Sandoval is fluent in Spanish.
Honors & Recognitions
Mr. Sandoval has been appointed to several state and local boards, including the California Civil Rights Council, State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, Voting Modernization Board, and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument Authority. In 2009, he received the Regional President of the Year Award from the Hispanic National Bar Association, the nation’s largest organization that represents the interests of the more than 100,000 Hispanic judges, attorneys, law professors, and law students in the United States and its territories. Mr. Sandoval is also a 2007 recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and has been a fellow of its Transatlantic Forum on Migration and Integration since 2008. Mr. Sandoval is a 2014 Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, a worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government, and the nonprofit sectors.