Norton (Ernest) Tooby

Norton Tooby mostly practiced criminal law his entire career, starting with trial level work, advancing to criminal appeals, and from 1986 to the present, specializing in criminal defense of immigrants, immigration consequences of criminal cases, and post-conviction relief for immigrants.

Educational & Employment History • Solo Practice, Law Offices of Norton Tooby from 1989 to the present in Oakland • Founding member of the East Oakland Community Law Office from 1976 to 1989 • Founding member of Romines, Wolpman, Tooby, Sorensen, Constantinides & Cohen from 1971 to 1976, a community law office in Palo Alto • J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1970 • President of the Stanford Law Review from 1968 to 1969 • BA, with honors, from Harvard University in 1967

For about three decades, Mr. Tooby organized and presented at day-long continuing education legal seminars for criminal and immigration lawyers, in California and nationally, in partnership with leading professional non-profit organizations in these fields. He authored or co-authored about 10 practice manuals in these fields, such as the three-volume “Criminal Defense of Immigrants,” and with K. Brady, “California Criminal Defense of Immigrants,” CEB, updated annually from 2014 to 2018. Mr. Tooby created and maintained the criminal immigration legal research website. Mr. Tooby handled People v. Marks, 45 Cal.3d 1355 (1988), in which the death penalty murder conviction was reversed and the client set at liberty. His primary practice manual, “Criminal Defense of Immigrants,” was cited as an authoritative treatise in Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 1482-83 (2010). Achievements Awards • Burton Award of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, San Francisco, for excellence in lawyering on behalf of immigrants in 2000 • Award from the National Lawyers Guild National Immigration Project, for outstanding work in defense of immigrant rights in 2010 • American Immigration Lawyers Association Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for Excellence in Litigation in Immigration Law in 2011 as a member of the legal team that successfully litigated Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S.Ct. 1473 (2010)