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Laurel graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, where she focused on environmental poverty law. She has been a member of the California Bar since 2004. A native of California, she spent her last year of law school at Boalt Hall through the Berkeley-Harvard Exchange Program. During law school she worked on a variety of projects combining human rights and environmental law, from working with trash pickers in the major cities of Brazil, to advising indigenous groups in the Amazon who sought to protect their traditional knowledge and genetic resources. She also holds a B.A. magna cum laude in Environmental Studies from Brown University.


Laurel Firestone co-founded and co-directs the Community Water Center (CWC), a non-profit environmental justice organization located in Visalia, California. The CWC helps disadvantaged communities gain access to clean and affordable water. She previously served as the Director of the Rural Poverty Water Project at the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment in Delano, under a 2004-06 Equal Justice Works Fellowship. In 2009 she authored the comprehensive Guide to Community Drinking Water Advocacy, and in 2010 she and Susana De Anda were co-awarded the Carla Bard Advocacy Award from the Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform (POWER), awarded to one water advocate in California each year. She currently serves on the Tulare County Water Commission.