Henrissa Bassey

Henrissa Bassey received her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law. Prior to attending law school, Henrissa attained a Master of Public Health from the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health. Henrissa has represented historically marginalized and racialized clients in civil court, administrative hearings, HUD conciliations, and appeals. She has also litigated unlawful detainer actions for tenants facing eviction, illegal rent increases, retaliation, discrimination, harassment, and habitability violations.

Prior to joining Bet Tzedek, Henrissa worked as a co-directing attorney for Centro Legal de la Raza, a staff attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid, and a policy research associate at PolicyLink. She has also had the opportunity to work alongside systems-involved young people from underserved communities in California, Washington, DC, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria to advance racial, social, and gender equity.

Henrissa is passionate about using multi-faceted approaches to enforce the rights of communities who have systematically been denied just and fair participation in our society and/or are treated as if their livelihoods do not matter. She strives to guide the PEHP team to disrupt the status quo, prevent displacement and homelessness, and use the law to help historically marginalized communities remove barriers to living the lives they envision for themselves.