About Us:

There are several components to the WRLC's work. First, the Center's staff provides free legal services to low-wage workers struggling to enforce their rights in the workplace. Second, the Center contributes to the empowerment of workers by educating workers about their labor and civil rights. Third, the WRLC works with local and national organizations to advocate for reform on behalf of low-wage workers.

Our Newsletters:

Click the following links to view the WRLC's newsletters:

New! Spring 2007 Newsletter

Spring 2006 Newsletter

Summer 2005 Newsletter

Opening Celebration Newsletter (Fall 2004)

Our Staff:

	WRLC Executive Director Tricia Kakalec has been with the WRLC since 2004. Prior to co-founding the WRLC, Tricia was an attorney with Farmworker Legal Services of New York, and represented farmworkers in New York for six years. She has also spent three years in private practice in New York City, and served as a law clerk for the Hon. Denis R. Hurley in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Tricia is a 1993 graduate of Harvard Law School.
	Before joining the WRLC in 2007, Attorney Lara Kasper-Buckareff represented victims of domestic violence and low-wage workers at MidPenn Legal Services and Farmworker Legal Services of New York. Lara was also an adjunct professor at Franklin and Marshall College, teaching Women and the Law. A 2005 graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo, Lara received her J.D. and M.S.W., and was a recipient of the Robert J. Connelly Trial Technique Award. During law school, she interned at Farmworker Legal Services of New York and the WRLC.
	WRLC Attorney Valeria A. Gheorghiu was a workers’ rights attorney for South Jersey Legal Services after graduating from Vermont Law School (VLS) in '06 with a J.D. and Master's in environmental law. A Center for World Indigenous Studies Fellow for Gene Campaign in New Delhi, India in '05, she published on farmers’ rights in the Fourth World Journal. In '04 in Romania, her birth country, she participated in the Rosia Montana campaign against a proposed cyanide leachate gold mine. At VLS, she started the L.S. and K.C. Legal Book Drive, shipping legal texts to developing countries' law libraries.
	Outreach Paralegal Diana Vázquez started working with the WRLC in 2006. She was raised in Newburgh, New York. During high school, she worked in a local factory and is intimately familiar with the issues impacting low-wage workers in the region. In 2002, Diana attended the AFL-CIO Union Summer, where she helped to organize grocery store workers in New York City. She was also a member of the Youth Resources Development Corporation Americorps at the Rural & Migrant Ministry in Poughkeepsie, New York. Diana is a 2006 graduate of Bard College.
	Outreach Paralegal Phoebe Schell joined the WRLC in June of 2008. She joins us from NYC after helping to found the immigrant-led social justice organization Movement for Justice in El Barrio to fight for dignified housing and against gentrification in East Harlem. She has been organizing with low-income and immigrant workers and families for social, racial and economic justice since she graduated from Wesleyan University in 2004.
	Office Assistant Alma Vázquez is a student at Dutchess Community College.

Our History:

The WRLC was founded in 2003 by former Farmworker Legal Services of New York (FLSNY) attorneys Dan Werner and Tricia Kakalec. As more and more non-farmworkers were calling their office at FLSNY, they realized there was a need for legal services and legal education for non-farmworker low-wage workers. The WRLC was created to address this need.

The WRLC was incorporated in July 2003. The WRLC moved closer to becoming a reality when, in the summer of 2004, Tricia and Dan were awarded an Echoing Green Foundation fellowship to support the creation of the project. The Dyson Foundation and other colleagues, unions, board members, family, and friends provided the other important support that allowed the WRLC to open its doors.

On June 1, 2004, the WRLC opened part-time in office space donated by UNITE-HERE in Kingston, New York. We filed our first case in July of 2004. On September 1, 2004, the WRLC opened full-time, with Tricia and Dan as the only staff members. In January 2005, Geovanny Triviño joined the WRLC as our Outreach Coordinator, and the WRLC began reaching out more and more in the community. In April 2005, we grew out of our donated office space and moved to our new office at 101 Hurley Avenue in Kingston. In October 2005, Kati Griffith joined the WRLC with the support of a Skadden Fellowship. Paralegal Diana Vázquez replaced Betsaida Alcantara in June 2006. Betsaida left the WRLC to participate in the prestigious Public Policy Fellowship at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. In March 2008, Dan Werner left the WRLC for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

We continue to work with interns, volunteers, and others to develop the WRLC and to be responsive to the needs of our community.