Cort Carlson

Cort Carlson is a Public Interest Fellow in the Oakland, California office. In his first two years of practice, Mr. Carlson has tried a multi-week class action jury trial to verdict, has and continues to serve as class counsel in numerous cases challenging unfair and deceptive practices, and has been ranked in 2024 Best Lawyers Ones to Watch. Beginning in May 2024, Mr. Carlson will join Public Justice’s Debtors’ Prison Project, where he will spend three months litigating economic justice and civil rights cases on behalf of people who are incarcerated, before returning to Tycko & Zavareei LLP.

Mr. Carlson received his J.D. from University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2022, with a Public Interest & Social Justice Certificate. During law school, Mr. Carlson completed a judicial externship with the Honorable Kimberly J. Mueller, Chief United States District Judge for the Eastern District of California, worked on whistleblower cases as a law clerk for a plaintiffs’ firm in the Bay Area, and worked on cases involving unfair housing conditions as an extern at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Mr. Carlson was twice elected to editor positions on the Ecology Law Quarterly, one of the nation’s leading environmental law reviews, and served on the Berkeley Technology and Law Journal. Outside of school, Mr. Carlson served as a student advocate for incarcerated youth in collaboration with the Contra Costa County Public Defender and was a student researcher for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Mr. Carlson received his B.A. Summa Cum Laude in Anthropology and English with a minor in Political Science from The George Washington University in 2019. Prior to law school, Mr. Carlson served as an academic tutor to persons pursuing higher education while incarcerated at Prince George’s County Correctional Center in Maryland. Mr. Carlson was also a research assistant for the GW Anthropology Department and the Smithsonian Institution.