About Michelle
Michelle Zhu earned her law degree at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, graduating in 2022. She completed a course of study that included clinics and externships typical of modern California law schools. Her time at law school overlapped with several practical placements that shaped the early arc of her career.
Her career began in a string of clerkships and internships during law school. In 2020 she served as a summer law clerk at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. The following year she worked as a summer law clerk for the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps and held a corporate counsel externship at the Wikimedia Foundation. She also took on a legal operations internship at Sleegal AI while still enrolled, gaining exposure to in-house and tech-oriented legal work.
In 2022, Zhu spent part of the year at the California Department of Justice as a law clerk for the Attorney General’s Office. She then joined PwC as a tax controversy associate, where she handled matters involving tax disputes and administrative proceedings. Those positions gave her early experience in public-sector litigation, military law environments, corporate counsel tasks, and tax controversy practice.
A move to private practice followed. In 2023 she worked as an associate lawyer at Arnold Law Office. That role placed her in a firm setting where she took on client-facing responsibilities and supported case preparation across a range of matters. Colleagues describe her approach as methodical. She balances research and courtroom preparation and adapts between transactional and adversarial tasks.
Zhu is licensed to practice in California. She has maintained memberships in professional organizations relevant to early-career attorneys and has continued to participate in the legal community since graduating. Her path includes both public and private roles, and she has built a resume that crosses tax, government litigation, and corporate legal work.
Her practice blends elements of tax controversy and litigation, informed by internships that ranged from a state Attorney General’s office to the Wikimedia Foundation and the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps. She currently practices at Arnold Law Office, handling tax controversy and litigation matters in California.
