Biography
ERIKA HEATH joined Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. in 2020, and focuses her San Francisco practice on individual and class action litigation for consumers harmed by erroneous credit reports, inaccurate employee background checks, unlawful debt collection practices, and other unfair trade practices.
Erika is a 2002 graduate of Southern Methodist University, where she majored in business. She worked in finance in both Texas and Germany before earning her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 2009. After graduating, Erika got her start as an attorney at Atlanta Legal Aid Society, where she focused on protecting low-income consumers from abusive business practices.
Both during her time as a legal aid attorney and after, Erika has participated in a number of high-profile cases. She served as lead counsel on the case of Strickland v. Alexander, which ultimately led to a federal court declaring Georgia’s garnishment process to be unconstitutional and enjoining most consumer garnishments in the state. As a result of her work on the Strickland
case, Erika received numerous awards, including the 2015 Consumer Achievement of the Year award from the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA). In the summer of 2017, she served as co-counsel in the trial of Bowerman v. Field Asset Services, Inc. (N.D. Cal.), which led to a jury verdict of more than $2 million for 11 employees who were misclassified as independent contractors. She is currently a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley (BerkeleyLaw), where she teaches a course on the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Erika moved with her family to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015. She is licensed to practice in California, Georgia, and New York. She is an active member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.