Gretchen Gonzalez, Esq.
Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Gonzalez has dedicated her career to civil legal services and brings experience from a wide variety of substantive legal areas. Prior to becoming CEO, she was a Senior Staff Attorney in VLP’s Positive Families and Individuals project providing representation to clients impacted by HIV and a staff attorney in VLP’s Community and Economic Development Program working with not for profits and small businesses in WNY. She has worked in New York City as a trial attorney in the housing unit of both the Legal Aid Society’s Harlem Community Law Office and Queens Legal Services. Ms. Gonzalez has also worked as a Staff Attorney with the Urban Justice Center Mental Health Project where she represented clients with severe and persistent mental illness in cases related to public benefits. She clerked with the ACLU National LGBT Rights Project and Children’s Legal Services.

Ms. Gonzalez holds a Bachelors of Arts and Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Boston University, as well as an MA in Psychology, cum laude, from City University of New York Hunter College. She is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Club of Buffalo’s Non-Profit Management Program.

She is the Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) Committee on Legal Aid, and a member of the NYSBA President’s Committee on Access to Justice. She is an executive board member of the NYS Legal Services Coalition. She has also been appointed to the NY Office of Court Administration Statewide Advisory Committee on ADR and the NY Office of Court Administration Firearms Analysis, Surrender, and Response Community Stakeholders Team.