Ilona M. Turner came to NCLR from Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP, a union-side labor law firm in New York City, where she represented unions, union-affiliated health and retirement plans, and employees. Ilona earned her bachelor’s degree in women’s studies and linguistics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2000, where she graduated with honors including Phi Beta Kappa. In 2006, she received her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall). While in law school, she was awarded the Mary C. Dunlap Fellowship to spend a summer at NCLR working to advance transgender rights, and also worked at the public interest law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser, P.L.L.C. She served as Managing Editor of the California Law Review, and authored Sex Stereotyping Per Se: Transgender Employees and Title VII, 95 Cal. L. Rev. 561 (2007).

Prior to law school, Ilona worked as a Legislative Assistant to progressive icon Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg and subsequently as Legislative Advocate for Equality California. She helped win the passage of groundbreaking LGBT-rights legislation that, among other things, significantly expanded the rights of domestic partners under California law, and prohibited discrimination based on gender identity and expression in employment and housing.