Emily austin

Senior Policy and Advocacy Specialist

Emily Austin, J.D., Founder and President of Pivot Advocacy, P.C. Pivot Advocacy, P.C. is committed to community and institutional change for ending abuse and promoting  justice through educating people within systems, developing supportive and in-house methods to confront and end  harassment, and creating tools for the promotion of healthy communities, workplaces, and families. She works as a consultant to bring thoughtful, authentic change to systems, organizations, and individuals to end abuse.

Emily graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Women’s Studies and English. Emily received her law degree from USC, Gould School of Law. She was previously the Senior Policy and Advocacy Associate for ValorUS (formerly the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault). While there, she worked on improving system responses to sexual assault in such areas as college/university, incarcerated populations, and workplace through both state and national policy.

She has developed trainings and workshops on responding to sexual violence and domestic violence for law enforcement officers, businesses, wardens, and incarcerated settings, as well as K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. She had developed trainings and workshops on trauma-informed care and approaches for systemic change for schools/universities, businesses, unions, law enforcement, legal advocates, parents/guardians, and community organizations. Following law school, Emily worked at the California Women’s Law Center to improve school responses to gender-based violence, including direct representation of survivors and policy development. She worked at Peace Over Violence as Director of Policy, where she developed state legislation, researched child sexual abuse, created prevention curricula, and built community collaborations.

She currently works on projects around trauma-informed support and advocacy from a survivor-driven lens, campus training response to sexual violence, community organizing strategies to end violence, engaging survivor voice in policy advocacy, international and national systems reform to support athlete survivors of abuse, and strategy development for state and national responses to sexual assault and violence.