MIHO MURAI, Esq. is a solo practitioner in Los Angeles, California where she represents families in education law (including special education, school discipline, bullying, retaliation for educational advocacy, discrimination, and Section 504 plans), regional center services, immigration law (naturalization, U visas, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status ("SIJS"), Violence Against Women Act ("VAWA"), and T visas), adoptions, guardianships, and dependency law (children in foster care). Her passion and commitment to these vulnerable youth derive from her experiences as a teacher and community activist.
Miho received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a Specialization in Chicana/o Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Upon graduating, she taught for four years as a bilingual elementary school teacher in South Central Los Angeles. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she served on the Student Success Team, a committee designed to assess and recommend individual student modifications in the general education program. She also created and instructed, in Spanish, a school-wide parent class that provided reading and writing strategies to be implemented at home. After the passage of Proposition 227, and witnessing its negative effects on her students, she decided to pursue her life-long dream of attending law school.
Miho graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, with a Concentration in Public Interest Law in 2004. While in law school, she had the honor of externing for the late Honorable Robert M. Takasugi, United States District Court, Central District. She also worked at numerous non-profit organizations, including Legal Services for Children, National Center for Youth Law, Asian Law Caucus, and
Public Counsel Law Center, as well as the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.
Miho has been a member of the California State Bar for almost seventeen years. She has significant litigation experience as a former Deputy Trial Counsel for the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel of the State Bar of California (prosecuting attorneys for misconduct), as a staff attorney for Sacramento Child Advocates (representing children in the foster care system), and as a staff attorney for Public Counsel Law Center (representing students in special education, school discipline, and other education related issues).
Miho is fluent in both English and Spanish. She is a member of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles County, the Asian Pacific American Women Lawyers Alliance (where she served as Vice President of Membership in 2018), the Southern California Special Education Task Force, the California Foster Youth Education Task Force, the California Association for Parent-Child Advocacy, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, the Japanese Speaking Parents Association with Children with Challenges, the National Lawyers' Guild of Los Angeles, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Southern California Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. In June 2021, she was appointed by the Los Angeles Unified School Board as a Community Member of the Community Advisory Committee for the Los Angeles Unified School District. On August 25, 2021, she was elected by her peers to serve on the 2021-22 Executive Committee as the Parliamentarian/Historian. In July 2010, she was selected to be a member of the Office of Administrative Hearings, Special Education Advisory Committee for the 2010-2012 fiscal years. She was reappointed to the position for the 2012-14 fiscal year.
Miho currently serves as the Treasurer and Membership Coordinator for the California Association for Parent-Child Advocacy. In addition, from 2017-2020, Miho served as one of the liaisons for AILA's Law Student/New Members Division for the Southern California Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. From 2016-2017, she served as the co-liaison for the 5th Grade Creative Essay Contest for the writing prompt, "Why I am Glad that America is a Nation of Immigrants," a project co-sponsored by the Southern California Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council. Miho is also a member of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court Education Panel, where she is regularly appointed to represent students with disabilities who are in the foster care system or in the juvenile justice system. Finally, Miho was elected in April 2019 for a four year term as the At Large Representative for the inaugural Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council. She serves as the Chair of the Schools and Libraries Committee and is a member of the Outreach and Communications Committee and the By-Laws Ad-Hoc Committee.
In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, dancing, teaching, creative writing, and volunteering. She is also a writer for the Examiner.com as the South LA Special Needs Examiner.
For more information on Miho Murai, please go to: www.linkedin.com/in/mihomurai. You can also view free immigration videos that were co-developed and co-instructed by Miho at Law Take. Check back regularly as she intends to create videos on education law.