Andrew Bridge is a New York Times Bestselling author, American lawyer, and advocate for children and families living in poverty.
[3] While in foster care as a child, Bridge was confined to the MacLaren Children's Center in Los Angeles County, a facility criticized for its harsh treatment of children and ultimately closed pursuant to a judicial settlement in Katie A. v. Los Angeles County.
Later Bridge joined the Broad Foundation, which under his tenure established the framework for Los Angeles County's $3.4 billion federal foster care financial waiver, allowing federal funding to support children in their own families rather than requiring children to be removed from their families and taken into state care in order to receive assistance.
He left Manatt, Phelps joining the Judge David L. Bazelon Center in Washington, D.C., to litigate the constitutional and federal statutory rights of children in Alabama's public psychiatric hospitals and mental health facilities under federal class actions in Wyatt v. Poundstone and R.C.
Following the Alliance for Children's Rights and his work at the Broad Foundation, Bridge went on to serve as Senior Innovation Adviser to the State of Illinois and its child welfare system.