Riley Hewko

Riley Hewko (they/them) is Legal Counsel at Community Initiatives. Riley identifies as nonbinary, transgender, queer, and Xicanx, and centers their work on anti-oppression, healing, and creative movement lawyering. Riley is also a liberatory coach, supporting individuals and organizations in aligning their work with justice, sustainability, and transformation.

Prior to joining Community Initiatives, Riley served as in-house counsel at Tides Center and Tides Foundation, MoveOn.org, and Movement Voter Project, where they advised on federal, state, and local campaign finance and advocacy compliance to support political, electoral, and issue-based advocacy campaigns.

Earlier in their career, Riley co-founded the Incarcerated Parents Project at the Washington Defenders Association in Seattle, served as an Equal Justice Works fellow at Legal Voice, an If/When/How fellow at the National Women’s Health Network, and a California ChangeLawyers fellow at the Transgender Law Center.

Riley is a 2011 graduate of the University of Washington School of Law, where they were a Gates Public Law Scholar, and serves on the advisory boards of several fiscally sponsored projects, including Lifewerq Project, Health Justice Commons, and Participatory Justice. Riley lives in Portland, Oregon with their wife and beloved 95-pound mastiff mix.