Professor Steinman has continued his work as a civil rights attorney. He has argued numerous times before the U.S. Supreme Court and was successful in three of these cases, including a landmark decision providing special education rights for millions of non-English-speaking and limited-English-speaking children. He is currently involved, as both a lawyer and community resident, in the operation of programs for the homeless in San Francisco. He also works with California Food Policy, advocating on issues of hunger and malnourishment.

He received his law degree in 1968 from Stanford University, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review. He then served as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert F. Peckham in San Francisco and worked three years as a civil rights and poverty law attorney in San Francisco.

Constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, and law and education