Martin Estrada Honored by the Alliance for Children’s Rights with the 2025 Francis M. Wheat Community Service Award
Munger, Tolles & Olson partner E. Martin Estrada has been named the recipient of the 2025 Francis M. Wheat Community Service Award by the Alliance for Children’s Rights. Since 1992, the Alliance has worked to protect the rights of children in poverty and those overcoming abuse and neglect by delivering free legal services, supportive programs and systemic solutions.
Martin will be honored for his extensive advocacy work on Wednesday, April 30, at the Alliance’s 33rd Annual Champions for Children event, which will be hosted by Rob McElhenney and Kaitlyn Olson and held at the Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles.
Before returning to MTO, Martin was the United States Attorney for the Central District of California from 2022 to 2025. He focused on litigation to enhance public safety and uphold the law, with an emphasis on civil rights, hate crimes, corruption, corporate crime, national security, human trafficking, and violent crime. He created several task forces and initiatives, including those for corporate crime, vulnerable communities, and safe cities. Martin also drove criminal justice reforms, such as forming a federal conviction integrity committee and expanding the Conviction and Sentence Alternatives (CASA) program for low-level offenders.
Martin is deeply committed to pro bono work, having led some of MTO’s most significant matters during his previous tenure at the firm. These include serving as lead attorney for the Bruce family in the Bruce’s Beach litigation, which allowed the County of Los Angeles to return beach-side land to the descendants of a Black family who had the land taken away from them based on racial animus in the 1920s and leading the trial team in Martinez v. New Mexico, a first-of-its-kind education rights victory against the State of New Mexico.