Strategy. Development. Evaluation. Coaching. Technology.
Alex Gulotta has more than thirty years of experience as a poverty law advocate and more than twenty years as an non-profit executive director.
Alex is nationally recognized as a leader in the civil justice and anti-poverty movement. “Alex’s reputation as a determined, ethical, spirited, optimistic, creative and devoted equal justice advocate is nationally acknowledged by his peers and colleagues,” said the NLADA president and CEO on the occasion of presenting Alex with the National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s Charles Dorsey Award in 2003.
A life-long social justice advocate, Alex practiced as a legal aid lawyer in Appalachian Kentucky and in northeastern Wisconsin before moving to Virginia in 1994 to become the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC).
As Executive Director of the LAJC, Alex earned a national reputation for his tenacity and creativity in overcoming restrictions placed on federally funded legal aid programs in 1996 by the U.S. Congress. Under his tenure the one-office, eight person program with a $350,000 budget grew into a four office, forty person program with a budget of approximately $4 million. The program also gained a reputation for its hard-hitting advocacy and close connections to its client communities.
Alex joined Bay Area Legal Aid (BayLegal) in 2014 as Executive Director. In less than four years, BayLegal’s budget grew from under $10 million to over $16 million and the number of poverty law advocates increased by nearly 50%. BayLegal significantly increased its impact litigation and policy advocacy through the implementation of an impact support structure designed to enable every advocate in the program to participate in high-end impact advocacy. Alex also oversaw a mutually beneficial and successful merger between Bay Area Legal Aid and Legal Aid of Napa Valley.
Alex has extensive experience as a consultant assisting legal aid and other non-profit programs with strategic planning, quality improvement, and peer review assessments. He has performed consulting work in eighteen states. Alex also has experience leveraging new and emerging technologies to solve problems in the non-profit world.
Awards: Virginia State Bar’s Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Award in 1999, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s Charles Dorsey Award in 2003, a resolution of commendation from the Virginia General Assembly in 2004, and was named a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation in 2005.
Professional Service: Served as Chair and Treasurer, Board of Directors, National Legal Aid and Defender Association