SAN FRANCISCO — Two years after Jahi McMath was diagnosed as brain-dead, the attorney for the Oakland teenager’s family on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit, the latest attempt in court to revisit a case that has drawn international attention.

At his San Francisco law firm on Wednesday, attorney Chris Dolan announced the suit claiming Jahi’s civil rights have been violated by those who refuse to heed evidence that she is alive.

The attorney said that over the past year he has filed suits and requests with California courts and state departments seeking to reverse the brain-death diagnosis and revoke Jahi’s death certificate, which keeps her from coming home to California. But every agency said the same thing: You can’t get relief here. So, he is headed to federal court.

“The complaint is designed to restore Jahi McMath’s life, to give her the most basic dignity and freedom to be called a human being and not a corpse,” said Dolan, who has represented the family since December 2013.

Jahi was declared brain-dead in December 2013, when she suffered cardiac arrest at Children’s Hospital Oakland after a complex surgery on her nose, mouth and throat to correct sleep apnea.

Almost immediately, her family rejected the findings of multiple doctors who concluded Jahi suffered brain death and therefore would never regain life. With the help of Dolan, they successfully compelled a state court to allow the family to move Jahi to a hospital in New Jersey. She has since been moved into a New Jersey apartment, where her mother, stepfather and younger sister share a two-bedroom apartment and nurses tend to Jahi daily.

What has followed is a nearly two-year legal battle, with Dolan issuing multiple court filings seeking to have a judge hear testimony from the family’s team of experts, who say Jahi shows signs of life. Such declarations challenge the findings by two doctors at Children’s Hospital — later renamed UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland — that were reaffirmed by a respected and court-appointed Stanford neurologist, Paul Graham Fisher.

As in previous news conferences, Dolan said videos of Jahi show she moves limbs when commanded by family members. In the latest lawsuit, a physician currently treating Jahi gave a statement saying she had witnessed Jahi move her fingers at the command of her mother, Nailah Winkfield, according to Dolan. Alan Shewmon, a respected neurologist from UCLA, has also reviewed hours of videotape of Jahi making similar movements when asked, Dolan said.

Experts have previously told this newspaper it is not uncommon for brain-dead patients to have spontaneous reflexes and have asked to see prolonged videos of Jahi being told to move body parts. The family has not publicly released videos of that length.

Sandra Chatman, Jahi’s grandmother who lives in Oakland, said she recently returned from a three-week visit with Jahi.

“I asked her to give a thumbs-up, and she does it. If I play music she wiggles (her fingers) to the rhythm,” Chatman said.

On Wednesday, Dolan said Jahi suffered a “serious brain injury” but does not meet the medical establishment’s criteria for brain death. Dolan said that her bowels, kidneys and intestines are functioning and that her lungs appear healthy and she is breathing well on a respirator.

Jahi’s mother, Winkfield, joined Dolan’s news conference via Skype, wearing a “Jahi’s Life Matters” button and said she wants to bring her daughter home to their native Oakland.

“Jahi is healthy from the neck down, she just has a brain injury, and I understand those things do take time to heal,” Winkfield said. She said her life has changed since her daughter’s surgery went wrong. “I did have a house and a job. I don’t have a house anymore. I don’t have a job anymore. I don’t have my other children (with me) anymore. I don’t have family holidays celebrated at home. I don’t get to go out with my friends anymore. I don’t get to see my daughter’s smile anymore. I’m devastated.”

Over the past year, Dolan has unsuccessfully asked the state to reverse Jahi’s brain death certificate, which was issued when the court allowed the family to remove her from Children’s Hospital. A separate medical malpractice lawsuit from another family attorney is currently moving through Alameda County Superior Court, a case that also may allow testimony from experts who believe Jahi is alive. In California, there is a cap of $250,000 on medical malpractice lawsuits involving children who die as a result of surgery. If a court deemed Jahi alive, the family could be compensated for the damaged from her surgery and continued care, which would be significantly higher than $250,000.

Her biological father, Milton McMath, filed his own lawsuit against the hospital this month, a suit that is nearly identical to Winkfield’s suit.

“I will not give up on Jahi, period,” Winkfield said Wednesday. “I will pull a trigger on myself before I pull the plug on her.”