Board Members

Jane Migachyov was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Central Valley. She went to the East Coast for her education, graduating cum laude from Harvard College. Her undergraduate thesis was nominated for the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for outstanding scholarly work. Pursuing a desire to do public interest work, Jane attended the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, receiving a Masters in Public Policy. Her Master’s thesis received the Manny C. Carballo Memorial Prize for best thesis dealing with social policy issues. Jane completed her education on the East Coast at Boston University, where she received a Juris Doctor degree. After graduating from law school, Jane practiced in general civil litigation for five years in the Bay Area before starting her career in family law.

Jane is passionate about advocacy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, serving four years as a committee member of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Advisory Committee, San Francisco Human Rights Commission, serving on the Board of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and Freedom from Tobacco, an LGBT anti-smoking group. She is a member of the LGBTQI Chamber of Commerce – the Golden Gate Business Association. She also served on the Board of the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus, Harvard’s LGBTQI alumni organization from 2018-2020. She has been on the BALIF Board since 2018.

Additionally, Jane values helping people have access to the legal system. She worked as a mentor at the Bayview/Hunters Point Community Legal Clinic, providing guidance in family law cases. She has done pro bono family law work through the Justice & Diversity Center of The Bar Association of San Francisco. Finally, she volunteered for Legal Aid at Work’s Workers’ Rights Clinic.

Pronouns: She/Her

Email:newlawyers@balif.org

Stephan Ferris is a rising 3L at UC Hastings from Las Vegas, Nevada. At eighteen, he moved to San Francisco and has enjoyed the sun shining on the city by The Bay for the past eleven years. He achieved his Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast and Electronic Communication from San Francisco State, and he created the university’s first emphasis in Law and Regulation of Media. He spent his 1L summer at the office of solo practitioner Okan Sengun, working to gain asylum for LGBT immigrants and worked as a law clerk at Outten & Golden his 2L Spring. Currently, Stephan is working as a judicial intern for the honnorable Richard L. Sippel at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. Stephan has advocated for the LGBT and HIV-positive communities on an international scale since his residency in California. He has a passion for media and during law school has developed an interest in copyright and trademark law, working his way towards a concentration in intellectual property. This year, Stephan served as the Senior Symposium editor for the Hastings Women’s Law Journal, booking panelists for the annual symposium entitled “Beyond Prevention: Defeating HIV” and will serve as the journal’s incoming Managing Editor. In addition to his work on the journal, Stephan served as President of the LGBT group OUTLAW and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of BALIF (Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom). Outside of class, Stephan enjoys horror movies, musical theatre, concerts, and drag shows.

Email: communityactivisim@balif.org | socialaction@balif.org | programs@balif.org

Rafael Langer-Osuna is a partner at Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP where they focus on two different areas of litigation. On the one hand, they try cases in state and federal courts for and against foreign sovereigns. On the other, they litigate disputes involving start up technology companies or the internet, including cases arising from online defamation, the use of copyrighted materials on social media, data breaches, data privacy, hacking, and software licensing conflicts. Rafael is barred in California and Florida and has been admitted to practice before the Ninth Circuit as well as several district courts throughout the country.

Rafael dedicates a significant amount of time to studying and bettering the world around them. They maintain an active pro bono practice assisting the Transgender Law Center’s asylum efforts, working for environmental groups, winning cases for local charitable organizations, and helping to improve gender equity. In addition to serving as Co-Chair of BALIF’s Community Activism and Social Action Committee, Rafael also currently serves as a non-binary support group facilitator, director of the Western Cave Conservancy, chairperson of San Francisco Bay Chapter of the National Speleological Society, and an advisory board member for the Squire Patton Boggs Foundation.

Rafael was born in Bolivia, grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has lived all over the country. They earned degrees from Carnegie Mellon University (BA), UC Berkeley (MA in Education), and Duke (JD/MA in East Asian Studies) and studied in Hong Kong SAR and Nanjing, China. In their spare time, Rafael parents two teenagers, reads voraciously, practices Daoist arts, cooks vegetarian meals for friends, gardens, and surveys California’s caves and reefs.