About Aligna and Carrie Griffin Basas, Esq.
Strategic and legal advising for complex organizations — helping leaders make decisions that hold where values, law, and operational realities intersect
About Aligna
Aligna is a legal and strategic advisory practice founded in the Pacific Northwest to help leaders translate their commitments to inclusion into durable decisions, systems, and structures.
Our work is grounded in the belief that inclusion is structural, not an add-on. When organizations design for access and belonging, they surface constraints earlier, reduce risks, and make decisions that hold under pressure.
The pursuit of the perfect answer holds us back when we should really be seeking alignment and momentum. Aligna is here so that leaders don’t have to wonder if they’re doing the right thing. With clarity, they know their structures support their best decisions. Our clients range from education to nonprofit, healthcare to small business, state government to artists. What connects them isn’t sector or even identity. It’s complexity. They come to us when decisions carry legal, operational, and human consequences that can’t be separated.
Grounded in lived experience, Carrie helps leaders anticipate constraints and design decisions that hold
Carrie Griffin Basas, Esq.
Attorney • Strategist • Founder of Aligna (*formerly CoDesign Works and Justice Studio)
About Carrie
Carrie Griffin Basas, JD, MEd, is an attorney and organizational strategist who works with executive leaders, boards, and public-sector decision-makers navigating complex, high-stakes choices where values, law, and operational realities collide.
She brings deep expertise across law, governance, and systems change, having served as Executive Director of statewide disability rights and legal aid organizations, Director of the Washington State Governor’s Office of the Education Ombuds, and a law and business professor teaching labor law, disability rights, corporate social responsibility, ethics, writing, research, and governance. She is a licensed attorney in Washington State.
Carrie’s work is rooted in both rigorous professional training and lived experience with disability. That combination gives her an unusually clear view of how systems fail under pressure — and what it takes to design decisions, policies, and structures that actually hold.
Through Aligna, she partners with organizations to move beyond intention toward durable, accountable action. She started her first nonprofit fresh out of law school and has acquired many life lessons since then that are applicable to founders, Board members, and funders.
Approach
Carrie believes inclusion is not a value-add; it is structural. Her work treats access, equity, and belonging as sources of intelligence about risk, power, and system design. By centering perspectives that surface failure early, she helps leaders anticipate constraints, reduce harm, and make better decisions before crisis forces their hand.
Education, Licenses, & Admissions
- Juris Doctorate (J.D.), Harvard Law School
- M. Ed. (Education Policy), University of Washington
- B.A. with Honors (Psychology), Swarthmore College (Truman Scholar and Eugene Lang Scholar)
- Licensed Attorney, Washington State
- Admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
On the Lighter Side
- First-gen college graduate
- First job: Teaching truckers how to enter fuel taxes into a computer
- Parent to a senior in H.S.
- Loves a great view of nature
- Often talks to random dogs and cats (or alpacas— context, folks)
- Strongly believes that vegetables do not belong in anything called “cake”
- Tries to switch up her farmers market outings
- Has too much yarn, and somehow, not enough pens
- Needs espresso and dark chocolate daily
- From Maryland, so she knows what’s happening when people get out newspapers and wooden mallets. She sometimes misses tollbooths where people would call her “hon.”
- Impractical daydream: Office on a houseboat
- Still thinks WA’s ferry system is pure magic after 14 years living in Seattle
Selected Media and Commentary:
Carrie’s work has been cited and featured in national and regional media in connection with disability rights, governance, and public systems.
Working Together
I work with a limited number of clients at a time so that I can provide focused, responsive support. If you’re not sure where to start:
Have a specific legal question and need advice, instead?
Many of our clients want to know that their vendors and partners share their commitments to investing in equitable leadership and the growth of diverse entrepreneurialism. Aligna is proud to be a disability-led, woman-owned (WBE), and LGBTQ-owned (LGBTE) small business. We are an SCS in King County and a micro-business in Washington. We look forward to growing our team in the future. In the meantime, we welcome partnerships with other like-minded independent consultants, and we co-counsel to expand our impact.