OUR MISSION

GLOW: Grassroots Law & Organizing for Workers (formerly National Legal Advocacy Network) is a racial and economic justice organization dedicated to shifting the balance of power towards greater equity in our economy and society by focusing on the intersection of law and organizing. 

We believe that impacted people should be directly involved in shaping the policies that govern their lives and that people power will achieve more lasting change than any legal or legislative strategy. Therefore, we use legal strategies in combination with organizing to meet the immediate needs of working-class people, encourage collective action and democratic participation, challenge predatory and exploitative working conditions, and advance policies that build wealth and power in poor and working-class communities. 

OUR TEAM

Sheila Maddali
Executive director

Sheila (she/her) is the daughter of South Asian immigrants and began organizing as a teenager when her community was targeted by post-9/11 racial profiling and immigration enforcement. She has been involved in the struggle for racial and economic justice for nearly two decades in a variety of roles, ranging from street canvasser to legal counsel. For the past decade her work has focused on the intersection of law and organizing. Prior to working at NLAN, Sheila served as the Director of Law & Organizing at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) and before that she practiced immigration law and organized around immigrant detention, prison expansion, and sex workers rights.

keren salim
staff attorney

Keren Salim (she/her/hers) is a Muslim Pakistani North Carolinian committed to community and movement lawyering that de-centers the law and leverages resources in order to shift the balance of power. Prior to her position at GLOW, she worked as a community lawyer at New Haven Legal Assistance Association, where she focused on workers' rights and housing justice. During her time at legal aid, she prioritized providing legal and technical support to organizers and coalitions in the community. She graduated from Northeastern University School of Law, where she spent the majority of her time on public interest and civil rights law opportunities, including participation in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Clinic and the Poverty Law Clinic and interning at Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Greater Boston Legal Services. Keren is a relationship-builder, and works to center anti-racist and liberatory organizing principles in her work as an attorney.

lorraine sands
LEGAL ORGANIZER

Lorraine (she/her), an organizer and a paralegal, aims to bridge law and organizing in movement work. Motivated by the belief that all people deserve access to safe, healthy & happy lives, Lorraine’s work is rooted in abolition and inspired by liberation struggles across the world. Prior to GLOW, Lorraine worked at Workers’ Law Office as an Outreach Paralegal, working on class action lawsuits against exploitative and discriminatory temporary staffing agencies. Before moving to Chicago, Lorraine lived & worked in Kansas City, Missouri at Legal Aid in the Economic Development & Immigration departments. While in KC, Lorraine was active with Stand Up KC, Kansas City's Fight for 15 campaign, supporting workers in their movement for a living wage and a union. Lorraine is devoted to deep relationship-building, cross-movement collaborations, trauma-informed advocacy and storytelling as a form of empowerment.

Chris williams
director of litigation

Chris (he/his) was one of the founders and the first Director of the Working Hands Legal Clinic (now Raise the Floor Alliance) in Chicago, a non-profit legal clinic that worked with a network of community-based worker centers to support workplace justice campaigns and to bring access to legal services for low wage Illinois workers in the area of labor and employment law. While Director, Chris advised the Illinois legislature on a number of pieces of legislation designed to protect the rights of Illinois’ most vulnerable workers, from the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act to the Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act, creating protections against abuse of the E-Verify system. In 2011, Chris left WHLC to start his own practice, Workers’ Law Office, PC, and now works with a national network of worker centers addressing workplace abuses in a variety of industries, from temp workers, restaurant workers, warehouse workers and domestic workers. Chris has been lead counsel or co-counseled in over 400 wage and hour and employment discrimination cases, including 45 class actions. Prior to practicing law, Chris spent over a decade as a union organizer for Chicago area labor unions and was a founding member of a Chicago-based worker center.