Gabrielle Lessard has over 15 years of experience as an attorney, advisor and manager for non-profit organizations.   She is a frequent presenter and trainer on non-profit matters and a guest lecturer and advisor to the Small Business Practicum at U.C. Berkeley School of Law and the CED Clinic at U.C. Hastings School of Law.

Prior to joining Katovich Law Group, Gabrielle was the Legal Director for the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, formerly the National Economic Development and Law Center (NED&LC).   She was a Skadden Fellow at NED&LC from 1993 – 1995 and has also been the Health Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, the founder and project director of a health advocacy organization called Healthy Outcomes for Youth, an associate with Hawley Troxell Ennis & Hawley, LLP, Idaho’s largest law firm and a law clerk for Justice Shirley Abrahamson, now Chief Justice, of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Gabrielle’s representation of non-profit organizations ranges from the formation of community-based organizations to the resolution of complex tax-exemption issues.  She has broad experience in community development issues, including business activities of tax-exempt organizations, the formation and operation of worker-owned cooperatives, establishment of for- profit subsidiaries, entity structuring for real estate development projects and the establishment of social welfare organizations.   She has also worked extensively on organizational compliance and governance issues, including the conduct of organizational assessments and restructuring issues such as asset sales, mergers and dissolutions.  Gabrielle has also developed a wide range of contracts for non-profit organizations, including collaboration, licensing, administrative service and fiscal sponsorship agreements.   She has a special interest in immigrant communities and is proficient in Spanish.

Gabrielle is also an entrepreneur and operates a fair trade business called Mangosteen Imports.

She received her J.D. with honors from the University of Wisconsin, where she was Articles Editor for the Wisconsin Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif national legal honor society, and a B.A. from Boston College.   She has been an active member of the California Bar since 1994.