Workplace Fairness - Litigation Funds

The Chet Levitt Fund For Employment Law

The Chet Levitt Fund For Employment Law starts 2006 with a $2,500 award to NELA member Samuel Rudolph (Hayward, California) to assist in his representation in a discrimination and whistleblower case involving the Boston Scientific Corporation. Your contributions are at work—thank you!

In 1996 a senseless act of violence ended Chet Levitt's life. Chet was an associate in the Washington DC employment law firm Cashdan Golden & Kane. In his memory several of Chet's friends and members of his family, with the cooperation of the NERI, created the Chet Levitt Fund For Employment Law to honor his life and his work in pursuit of equal rights in the workplace. Initially the Chet Levitt Fund was designed as a pilot project to service cases in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area and was to serve as an inspiration and model for other Funds that might be created with the support of Workplace Fairness in other areas of the country. Recently the Fund decided, that until other similar Funds are created, that it will operate nationally and make grant/loans available to cases outside of the greater Washington DC metropolitan area.

To this end the Fund is helping to support deserving employment and civil rights cases. The Fund does this by providing interest free grant/loans. For more information about the Fund, or to apply for a grant, go to http://www.chetlevittfund.org/.

If successful, the plaintiff is expected to reimburse the Fund. Here are some examples of grants given:

$2,500 in a disability discrimination case involving diabetes in Washington, DC;
$2,000 for a disabilities discrimination case in Maryland;
$2,500 for an FMLA case in Northern Virginia;
$2,400 to a minimum wage and overtime case in the District of Columbia;
$1,500 to a gender discrimination denial of academic tenure case in the District of Columbia;
$1,500 and $3,000 for a negligent hiring, sexual abuse case in Virginia;
$3,000 to a sex harassment case in Florida;
$2,000 for a gender discrimination case in Atlanta, Georgia.

The loan/grants given by the Fund, although modest in size, have generated vital "staying power." In several instances our grants have provided the wherewithal for a critical deposition, the expense of an expert, or an independent medical examination that has then led to the advantageous and sizeable settlement of those cases.

Although all of the cases funded thus far have had successful outcomes and the Fund has been reimbursed in full, our resources are still quite limited. Workplace Fairness calls upon you to continue and increase the level of your support so the Fund can grow. The Fund will then be able to make much larger grants to many deserving cases in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and throughout the country. With your help a dynamic Fund and lasting tribute to Chet will thrive. Please make checks payable to "Workplace Fairness-Chet Levitt Fund" and send them to:

The Chet Levitt Fund
David Cashdan
1150 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036

The Ohio Employment Litigation Expense Fund

In 1999, the Ohio Employment Lawyers Association and Workplace Fairness combined forces to form the Ohio Fund. The Fund was created to distribute funds to qualified applicants to cover litigation costs for plaintiffs in employment cases in Ohio.

If you are interested in making contributions to these funds or have a case of the public interest contact:

Ohio Employment Litigation Fund
Theodore Meckler
1991 Lee Road, Suite 213
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118-2157