Sacramento Office
Alex Cleghorn,
Directing Attorney
Mr. Cleghorn is the Directing Attorney of CILS’ Sacramento office. Mr. Cleghorn has several years of Federal Indian law experience. He previously worked as a CILS Staff Attorney and as an Associate with Sonosky Chambers LLP. Mr. Cleghorn has experience with a variety of Federal Indian law issues including the Indian Child Welfare Act, Tribal Court and code development, sovereign immunity, administrative regulation, land and Indian Self-Determination Education and Assistance Act contracts.
Prior to returning to CILS, Mr. Cleghorn was an Associate with Minami Tamaki LLP where his litigation practice focused on civil rights and employment law. He has represented individual and class action clients in state and federal courts and in mediation proceedings. Mr. Cleghorn also served as a Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California where he wrote an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court on behalf of a woman denied medical treatment because of her sexual orientation. He also played a role in the cases challenging California's exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage.
Mr. Cleghorn received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington and earned his juris doctor from Northeastern University School of Law in 2003. Mr. Cleghorn continues to be involved in civil rights issues and serves on the Board of Directors for the Transgender Law Center.
Mr. Cleghorn was born and raised in Alaska and is Aleut/Alutiiq. He is grateful for the support he received from the Natives of Kodiak and the Koniag Educational Foundation while in law school.
Karen Graham,
Legal/Administrative Assistant
Karen Graham has been a Legal/Administrative Assistant in the Sacramento office of California Indian Legal Services since September of 2008. She has an ABA certified Associates Degree in Paralegal Studies, and she is a Notary Public. Additionally, she has over 20 years of experience in office administration. Karen was born and raised in Sacramento, California. In her free time she enjoys traveling, music and spending time with her family and friends. Karen resides in the Sacramento area with her family.
Nicholas (Nic.) Mazanec,
Staff Attorney
Nic. joined CILS in 2011 as a Staff Attorney in the Sacramento Office. His legal practice has encompassed a variety of substantive areas, always striving towards achieving equity, fairness, and justice for individuals and groups. Nic. previously worked at a small firm representing tribes in New England in cases of environmental litigation, self-governance and tribal-state relations, sovereignty and sovereign immunity, as well as treaty rights and cultural preservation and revitalization. Nic. also worked at Western Massachusetts Legal Services, representing individuals in cases involving public benefits, employment, and housing, specializing in disability issues and health care, including health care reform. Most recently, Nic. developed medical privacy and security policy for the state of California at the Office of Health Information Integrity. He received his JD from Northeastern University School of Law where he worked as a co-op student at the Law Office of Douglas Luckerman, the ACLU of Northern California, the Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center, and Liberty, a human rights organization in London. He is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional.
Sonia Montero,
Advocate
Sonia Montero, has worked for California Indian Legal Services since March 1997. After obtaining her law degree from UC Davis Sonia has done jack-of-all-trades work for CILS, including serving as coordinator of the statewide CA Legal Services Website (known as www.LawHelpCalifornia.org,) developing self-help packets, conducting outreach to tribes and Indian individuals, training new attorney staff & law clerks on all facets of intake work, and maintaining programwide library resources. She currently maintains the CILS website and heads the intake work for the large Sacramento service territory. Sonia has also worked with other tech-based projects such as the CILS centralized intake hotline, the National Indian Legal Services website and the CILS ICAN!™ EITC project. Most recently she has coordinated the creation of the CILS Annual Report.
