Gilbert Orbea

Legal Analyst

Gilbert Orbea is a Legal Analyst at Democracy Forward.

He began his legal career at Democracy Forward in 2019 as a Legal Assistant and briefly returned in 2023 as an independent legal researcher. Prior to rejoining the organization full-time, he was an Associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he focused on government investigations and complex litigation. He is admitted to the D.C. Bar and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Gilbert earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he contributed to the Yale Law and Policy Review and completed internships with the Constitutional Accountability Center and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Regulation. He received scholarships from the Cuban American Bar Association and the New Jersey Hispanic Bar Association in recognition of his academic achievement. His areas of interest include administrative law, constitutional law, and the evolving role of the courts in upholding democratic governance. Gilbert holds a B.A. with high honors in Political Science and Economics from Swarthmore College, where he co-authored “Justice Neil Gorsuch Joins the Court” with Dr. Carol Nackenoff, published in SCOTUS 2018: Major Decisions and Developments of the Supreme Court.