Peter Eliasberg is chief counsel/Manheim Family attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU of Southern California.
Peter joined the ACLU in 1996 and served as the managing attorney and the Manheim Family attorney for First Amendment Rights until February 2011, when he became legal director for the affiliate.
During his tenure Peter has worked on cases involving the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, disability discrimination and educational equity, among others. He represented Frank Buono in federal district court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court in an Establishment Clause challenge to the presence of a cross on federal land in Buono v. Salazar.
Peter represented a class of bus riders with disabilities who sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority over the agency’s failure to provide accessible buses in Beauchamp v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority.
In Williams v. State of California, he represented a class of school children challenging the State of California's failure to provide basic education necessities ― including clean and safe school facilities, adequate textbooks, and trained teachers.
Peter graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and clerked for both Judge Stanley Sporkin of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
