First off, thanks for stopping by.
My name is Alex Murad and I am a California-licensed attorney.
I came to the law the long way around, and I would not trade that path for anything. I studied political science at UC San Diego, and for nearly ten years I have run my family’s ranch in Rose Valley, fifteen minutes north of Ojai. I earned my law degree at night while working this ranch by day, passed the First-Year Law Students’ Examination that California requires of students who take my route, and then passed the California Bar Exam, one of the hardest in the country. I was admitted to practice in 2025. I tell you all of this plainly because you deserve to know exactly who you are hiring: someone who does not quit on hard things.
Since admission, my practice has focused on the work you’ll see across this site. Specifically, my work centers on two things:
Representing Tenants Against Landlords who have Breached Legal Habitability Standards
Defending Tenants Against Eviction and Unlawful Detainer Actions
I handle matters involving both the Tenant Protection Act and California’s Mobilehome Residency Law, representing tenants and mobilehome residents throughout California. I take on cases involving retaliatory eviction, uninhabitable living conditions, disability discrimination claims, and other housing-related disputes that may ultimately be litigated in unlawful detainer court.
Whether you rent both the home and the land beneath it, or own your home while leasing space in a mobilehome park, I understand the legal protections available to you and the practical realities these disputes can create.
Why I do this work.
My grandparents came to New York from Baghdad in the 1940s. They worked hard to become American, and they did it the way a lot of families did back then: they opened a business and ran it well. Buckingham Chemists was a pharmacy on the corner of 57th Street and Sixth Avenue, a couple of blocks from Central Park, and for close to forty years it was theirs. My grandfather later wrote a book about that life, From Baghdad to New York, and the store is all over it.
Then, in 2000, the landlord canceled their lease. At least that is how it was explained to me. I was a small child, so I remember it the way a child does: one day the store was ours, and the next we were packing boxes, and what stayed with me was that nobody asked them. The decision was made somewhere else, by someone who owned the walls, and they were expected to go along with it.
That is the version I carried around for close to 30 years before it turned into a law practice, and I can draw a straight line from that storefront to the eviction defense and habitability work I do today. When a property owner tells a family to pack up, I want to be the person who asks whether they actually have to.
There is a second lesson in that story, and it is the one I use most. After my grandparents left, the space sat empty for years. At one point the whole storefront was wrapped in Delta ads. Even as a kid I could do that math: the landlord traded a business that had paid rent for decades for a wall with an ad on it. I see the same math every week. Landlords are not villains, but they are often wrong about what is in their own interest, and a good tenant’s lawyer does more than fight. Sometimes the most useful thing I can do for my client is walk the other side through the mistake they are about to make.
I look forward to hearing from you and handling the legal issues you may be facing with what I like to call “ranch grit”. A determination and work ethic you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.
Whether it be simple legal guidance or full representation, let me be your advocate.
All the best,
And thanks again for stopping by.
Disclaimer: This website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Viewing this site or communicating with the Law Office of Alex Murad through this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. Licensed to practice law in California only.