Ellen Hemley is the founding Executive Director of the Center for Legal Aid Education.

CLAE provides continuing education and training to equal justice attorneys and staff across the country. CLAE's work is grounded in a deep conviction in the power of the law to protect and advance the rights of people who are low-income or vulnerable and to ensure justice, equality and fairness in the broadest sense. It is further grounded in the belief that in order to deliver on the promise of equal justice, the equal justice delivery system requires highly skilled, knowledgeable and committed advocates. To that end CLAE's mission is simple but powerful - to provide equal justice advocates, through high quality, accessible continuing education and training, with the tools they need to obtain justice for their clients.

Prior to launching CLAE in January 2006, Ellen was Director of Training at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute where she oversaw CLAE’s predecessor, the Legal Services Training Consortium of New England. As an independent consultant, Ellen’s clients included the American Bar Association, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the Florida Bar Foundation, the Washington Access to Justice Commission, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the Massachusetts Union of Public Housing Tenants, and scores of other legal aid networks, bar foundations and justice-related programs across the country. She is a 1981 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law.

Ellen’s work as a consultant and trainer has been featured in many publications, including Management Information Exchange, the Shriver Center’s Poverty Law Manual for the New Lawyer, the Legal Services Corporation’s Equal Justice Magazine, Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly, the American Bar Association’s Dialogue Newsletter, and various law review journals.