Ted Mermin

Ted Mermin is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Public Good Law Center, and the Interim Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice. For the past decade he has assisted local, state and federal agencies in the development and defense of innovative policies in public health and consumer law; has litigated consumer rights and public health cases in appellate and trial courts around the nation, including in the United States Supreme Court; and has written and spoken extensively on issues of free speech, preemption, tobacco control, marketing to children, deceptive advertising, and unfair competition.

Ted teaches Consumer Protection Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he also coordinates the Consumer Law Program. He is pro bono counsel to the Consumer Justice Clinic at the East Bay Community Law Center, and recipient of the Center’s inaugural Guardian of Justice award. Ted additionally serves as convenor of the California Low-Income Consumer Coalition, a partnership dedicated to furthering the rights of vulnerable consumers through state and local policy advocacy.

Before founding Public Good, Ted served for eight years as a Deputy Attorney General in the California Department of Justice, where he brought consumer cases against abusive loan companies, rental car outfits and telecom providers. He handled the first case to rein in the practices of a predatory lender with more than 3000 outlets nationwide, and wrote a law that led the way to successful prosecutions of “immigration consultants” who routinely took thousands of dollars from refugees seeking asylum, while providing nothing in return. Before going to work for the Attorney General, Ted litigated in private practice, where his work included pro bono representation of victims of racial discrimination in retail sales, and served as a law clerk for the Hon. Louis H. Pollak. He holds degrees from UC Berkeley (J.D.) and Yale (B.A.).

Education

J.D., UC Berkeley School of Law
B.A., Yale University