About Us
Deborah H. Wald 
Deborah H. Wald is the founder and managing partner at The Wald Law Group. A Certified Family Law Specialist*, her work has evolved over the past 30 years from a part-time home-based family formation law practice to a multi-disciplinary full service family law firm. Ms. Wald’s goal is to ensure that all individuals, families, and children coming to The Wald Law Group receive the highest quality legal protections available. (*Certified by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.)
Ms. Wald is a custody specialist whose primary professional focus is on protecting children from the impacts of family trauma. With this goal in mind, she handles parentage disputes, custody matters, guardianships, assisted reproduction matters (egg donation, sperm donation, surrogacy, embryo agreements and disputes) and adoptions (both uncontested and contested), as well as serving as a court-appointed Parenting Coordinator (PC). She recently was recognized for her longstanding work on behalf of LGBTQ+ families by being named the 2022 Leading Family Law Practitioner by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. She also was named a 2021 Outstanding Volunteer in Public Service by the Justice and Diversity Center (JDC) of the Bar Association of San Francisco.
A teacher and author as well as a lawyer, Ms. Wald uniquely blends a practitioner’s experience with national and historical perspectives. She has served as an adjunct professor at both the University of San Francisco and Golden Gate University law schools. Her articles have been published in journals such as California Family Law Monthly, the State Bar of California Family Law News, and newsletters of the California Association of Certified Family Law Specialists (ACFLS-CA) and California Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC-CA).
Prior to moving into family law, Ms. Wald practiced immigration law with a focus on deportation defense and political asylum. She also is an experienced criminal defense attorney, having started her career as a public defender and then gone on to focus on indigent criminal appeals. She has integrated her immigration knowledge into her family law practice by representing undocumented children in Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) proceedings, as well as acting as a pro bono advisor to the San Francisco Office of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND).
Ms. Wald sits on the Board of Directors of the California Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC-CA), and she is the President of the Academy of California Adoption-ART Lawyers. She recently served as a member of the State Bar of California Family Law Executive Committee (FLEXCOM). Ms. Wald is the Chair of the National Family Law Advisory Council for the National Center for Lesbian Right (NFLAC), and formerly served on the Board of Directors of Our Family Coalition, the Bay Area’s largest LGBT family organization. Ms. Wald is a member of the local bar associations of San Francisco (BASF) and Alameda counties, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), and the National LGBT Bar Association. A graduate of Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms. Wald lives in San Francisco with her partner of many years and their dog Gracie, whose responsibility it is to make sure that no matter how busy Ms. Wald gets, she doesn’t forget to start each morning by taking a walk.
