Deborah Wald is the managing partner of The Wald Law Group, a full-service family law firm based in San Francisco, California. While her law firm handles all aspects of family law, Deborah herself focuses almost entirely on children. Her practice is divided between family formation – including egg and sperm donation, surrogacy and adoption – and parentage and custody litigation. She also handles both consensual and contested guardianships.
She is a Certified Family Law Specialist, certified by the State Bar of California, and has been selected as a Northern California Super Lawyer every year since 2015. She is President-Elect of the Academy of California Adoption/Assisted Reproduction Lawyers and is an Adjunct Professor at USF Law School, where she teaches an upper level family law seminar. She has been involved for many years in both legislation and litigation that has helped frame California’s approach to determining parentage, including clarifying the law as it relates to assisted reproduction and to LGBT parents and their children.
She is the standing Chair of the National Family Law Advisory Council of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and an active member of the Family Law Institute of the National LGBT Bar Association. A graduate of Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, Deborah lives in San Francisco with her partner of 40 years and their dog Gracie, whose responsibility it is to make sure that no matter how busy Deborah gets, she doesn’t forget to start each morning with a walk.