Ben Allen was elected as the top vote-getter in both his 2008 election and 2012 re-election; Ben Allen is a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Board of Education and is the Board’s immediate past President. Allen is an attorney with Richardson & Patel LLP, where his work focuses on government/political affairs and litigation. He is also adjunct faculty at UCLA Law School, where he teaches educational law and policy, serves on the executive board of the Los Angeles County School Trustees Association, is Vice Chair of L.A. County’s Committee on School District Organization, and is a delegate to the California Democratic Convention. While in law school, Allen served as a voting member of the University of California’s Board of Regents and as a judicial clerk with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Afterwards, Allen was a litigator with the law firm of Bryan Cave and then led the successful L.A. launch of The Spark Program, a non-profit organization that connects at-risk middle school students with apprenticeships. Prior to his law career, Allen worked for the National Democratic Institute, and then as Communications Director for Congressman Jose Serrano (D-NY). Allen has degrees from Harvard, Cambridge and Berkeley, and is fluent in Spanish.
