Sophie A. Akins

Associate

San Diego
655 West Broadway
15th Floor

TEL: (619) 525-1332
FAX: (619) 233-6118
Sophie.Akins@bbklaw.com

Sophie A. Akins is an Associate in Best Best & Krieger LLP’s Special District and Schools & Special Education Practice Groups. Ms. Akins’ practice focuses primarily on public contracts, prevailing wages/labor compliance programs and solar projects. Ms. Akins also provides general governance advice to public entities and currently serves as General Counsel for Ramona Municipal Water District.

Ms. Akins assists clients in undertaking solar projects in compliance with Senate Bill 1, the California Solar Initiative. Ms. Akins spoke on the topic of school solar projects at the annual Coalition for Adequate School Housing conference in February 2006 and published, "Solar Energy Partnerships Can Help California Beat the Heat," in the August 25, 2006, edition of the Los Angeles Daily Journal. Ms. Akins was recently quoted in the San Diego Daily Transcript, May 4, 2007, article, "Local attorneys integrate global warming awareness into practice."

In addition to her solar practice, Ms. Akins regularly reviews and drafts construction contracts, professional service agreements for public entities, such as, but not limited to, the Cities of Corona, Needles, Santee and Galt, the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, the Helix Water District, and the Elk Grove School District. Related to construction, Ms. Akins regularly assists public entities with prevailing wage and labor compliance programs. Ms. Akins is currently working with the City of Ontario in constructing a $100 Million community events center, scheduled to open in late 2008.

Ms. Akins graduated in three years, cum laude, from the University of California, San Diego with a double major in Urban Studies and Planning and Sociology, and earned her Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She was a member of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly and her Note, entitled "Congress’ Property Clause Power to Prohibit Taking Endangered Species" (28 Hastings Const. L.Q. 167) was published in the Fall 2000 edition.

Ms. Akins is active in her community of Golden Hill where she and her husband are restoring their 1913 bungalow. She is Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the Greater Golden Hill Community Development Corporation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and is currently working on the 25th Street Revitalization Project.

Bar & Court Admissions

• California, 2001

Education

• JD, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
• BA, University of California at San Diego