Eva Plaza graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1980. Ms. Plaza studied law at the University of California Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, where she served as Associate Editor of the California Law Review. After graduating from law school in 1984, Ms. Plaza was selected to the highly acclaimed Attorney General Honors Program of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. where she was trial counsel in the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch.
Ms. Plaza was appointed by President Bill Clinton to a four year term as Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1997. Prior to her appointment as Assistant Secretary, Ms. Plaza served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General over the Torts Branch at the U.S. Department of Justice. There, she handled and managed civil litigation brought against the U.S. Government in matters including aviation, admiralty, constitutional torts, environmental torts, medical malpractice, AIDS litigation, banking litigation, and vaccine and radiation litigation. Before serving in the Administration, Ms. Plaza was litigation trial attorney in the Washington, D.C. law firms of Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson and Arent, Fox, Kinter, Plotkin & Kahn from 1986 to 1993.
Ms. Plaza has received numerous awards for outstanding achievement, including the Albert Arent Pro Bono Award, 1989; the National Conference for College Women Leaders, Woman of Distinction Award in 1998; and the Hispanic Bar Association’s Equal Justice Award in 2002. She has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in America, and is a lifetime member of the American Bar Association’s American Bar Foundation.
Ms. Plaza is fluent in Spanish.
Bar Admissions:
- Texas, 1985
- Pennsylvania, 1987
- Washington, D.C. 1988
- California, 2007
Education:
- University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, 1984
- Harvard College, cum laude, 1980