Perales is the vice president of litigation at MALDEF, where she supervises the organization’s legal staff and litigation dockets. She has worked on numerous redistricting and voting rights cases, including the 2006 case LULAC v. Perry, a Voting Rights Act challenge to Texas congressional redistricting in which she successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Perales has also worked on cases defending a multi-state challenge to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.