Joanne Karchmer

In 2006, Joanne joined the staff of Oakland City Councilmember Pat Kernighan in Council District 2. Her work ranges from policy development focused in the areas of public safety and public works to community relations primarily centered in the Grand Lake and Cleveland Heights neighborhoods. She works closely with the Lakeshore Business Improvement District, Grand Avenue merchants, and neighborhood groups such as Grand Lake Neighbors and other resident groups and crime prevention councils. Joanne is an attorney, who in her early career specialized in products liability litigation and public interest law. Her first job, after moving to the Bay Area in late 1996, was as a Staff Attorney at HomeBase-The Center for Common Concerns in San Francisco, working to increase organizational capacity and provide more comprehensive support services for homeless people throughout the Bay Area. In 1999, Joanne became a Public Interest Law Career Counselor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) advising future public interest lawyers. In addition to individual career counseling and development of public interest programming for students, she worked closely with the Berkeley Law Foundation and the law school administration to improve programs and financial options to help make a public interest law career a more affordable option for students. In 2002, she became the Director of Career Development at Boalt Hall, where she managed career-related programs for all law students and alumni and a staff of law counselors. She was instrumental in launching the first school-funded Public Interest/Public Sector Summer Law Fellowship program and Post-Graduate Public Interest Law Fellowships at Boalt Hall, both of which enabled students to better financially support themselves while pursuing public interest law careers.Prior to moving to California, Joanne worked actively on political campaigns in Massachusetts including Senator John Kerry’s campaign for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1996. She also served as Assistant Campaign Manager for Massachusetts State Senator Susan Fargo during her first successful run for state office. A graduate of Cornell University, Joanne earned her J.D. at Boston College Law School. She has lived in Oakland for ten years. She enjoys spending time with her husband and her three children exploring Oakland’s diverse neighborhoods and beautiful parks. She also serves as a Vice President on the Hillcrest Elementary School PTA Board of Directors, the neighborhood public school at which her daughter attends.