About Us

The Shelley Leinheardt Fund (SLF) was imagined by the family and friends of Shelley Leinheardt in response to her untimely passing, in 2012, after a valiant battle with cancer.  Shelley served as the first Executive Director of the National Employee Lawyers Association, New York affiliate (NELA), an organization of dedicated attorneys who promote the workplace rights of individual employees through litigation, legislation, and other activities. Shelley understood from her dedicated years of service that workers seeking to address work-place injustices in the litigation process are often economically disadvantaged and their attorneys limited in their ability to finance protracted litigation.  For this reason, Shelley’s family and friends provided the initial funding to launch an organization designed to offset litigation costs for employees seeking work place justice. Consequently, the SLF was incorporated in New York with the mission of protecting civil and human rights by issuing need-based grants to defray the litigation costs of individual parties and their respective attorney seeking justice in the workplace.