Biography

A staff attorney on the Work Quality team, Leo Gertner joined NELP in 2018. He supports NELP’s work by researching, developing, and promoting policies to combat workplace injustice and expand workplace protections for all workers across the country, with a particular focus on state and local minimum wage and wage enforcement campaigns.

Leo has experience representing low-wage and immigrant workers in the property services industry and participating in local progressive campaigns. Most recently, Leo served as the Norm Gleichman Law Fellow at the Service Employees International Union, where he provided legal and research support to a campaign to unionize low-wage airport workers. While at SEIU, he also helped write amicus briefs challenging anti-immigrant laws. During law school, Leo was a Peggy Browning Fellow with the United Steelworkers’ Legal Department in Pittsburgh and served as symposium editor on the Review of Law and Social Change. He continues to be involved with the Peggy Browning Fund as a member of its annual Workers’ Rights Conference planning committee.

Prior to law school, Leo worked at an SEIU local in Boston as a grievance representative representing janitors and security guards. He is admitted to practice law in Washington, D.C.

Leo is a proud member of the NELP Staff Association, NOLSW, UAW, LOCAL 2320.