Tyler Nicole serves as LAFLA’s Director of Racial Justice and Equity, leading the organization’s internal and external efforts to advance racial justice and equity. In this role, Tyler Nicole works to enhance the organization’s cultural competency and develop a legal services delivery system that proactively identifies and addresses race-based injustices affecting low-income individuals and communities of color. She collaborates closely with directors, managing attorneys, and staff across legal workgroups to pursue systemic change in law and policy, including through litigation and co-counseling, with a focus on addressing inequities rooted in racism, ageism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Tyler Nicole also serves as the lead for LAFLA’s reorganized Race Equity Initiative (REI) committee, providing strategic guidance and support to advance its initiatives.

Tyler Nicole joined LAFLA in 2018 as a Staff Attorney for Project ImPACT in the Restoring Communities Workgroup, where she served the Watts and South Bay communities by providing holistic legal services to remove legal barriers faced by formerly incarcerated Angelenos. In 2021, she transitioned to Managing Attorney of the Veterans Justice Center, which she expanded to one of the largest Veterans’ legal services teams in the state and created the Veterans of Color Advocacy Project, the nation’s first program aimed at targeting outreach and barrier removal services to justice-involved Veterans of color to address the systemic racism they’ve encountered during and post military service.

Tyler Nicole is also a key member of LAFLA’s task forces responsible for the creation of the Ask LAFLA community engagement program. As a co-leader of LAFLA’s Race Equity Initiative, she contributed to the creation of LAFLA’s Leadership Equity and Inclusion Fellowship (LEIF).

Before joining LAFLA, Tyler Nicole served as a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County’s (now Community Legal Aid of SoCal) Clean Slate Unit, specializing in post-conviction relief. Prior to her work in nonprofit legal services, Tyler Nicole practiced criminal defense, representing defendants in DUI, assault, drug offenses, and theft cases.

Tyler Nicole holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Spelman College in Atlanta, GA, and a Juris Doctorate with a concentration in Trial and Appellate Advocacy from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, MA.