Michael Sitkin

A new addition to the Beles team, Sitkin was born and raised in the Bay Area, graduating from U.C. Davis with a B.A. in Soviet and Middle Eastern History and a B.A. in German. From there, his path has taken him all over the map, both professionally (working as a teacher, union organizer, day laborer, and 100 other things) and literally (serving with Teach for America/AmeriCorps in Denver, Colorado, studying abroad in Berlin, or spending time with his family in New Zealand).

Sitkin’s advocacy work started with his service as a teacher, fighting a system hostile and unfriendly to the Title I ESL/SPED students who filled his Denver, Colorado classroom. Outside of the schoolhouse, he became a site organizer and strike captain for the Denver Classroom Teacher Association, fighting with words and mass protests for students and teachers to be given a fair deal. After the COVID-19 Pandemic shuttered his classroom, Sitkin set his sights on law school and accepted an offer and merit scholarship from his hometown school, U.C. Law SF (formerly U.C. Hastings).

There, Sitkin interned with Legal Services for Children SF, a non-profit focused on defending immigrant children, served as Chief Editor for the UC Law SF Constitutional Law Quarterly, and wrote original research on the impact of Bruen on California’s concealed carry regimen, all while clerking for Peretz and Associates (a fast-paced civil litigation firm in San Francisco).

Wanting a return to his roots serving the underprivileged, Sitkin joined the Beles Team, working primarily on resentencing petitions, Racial Justice Act motions, expungements, and various other forms of appellate relief. Additionally, with his background as a range safety officer and knowledge of state and federal firearms law, Sitkin works the firm’s various firearms cases with precision and enthusiasm.