Alisa Wellek

Alisa Wellek (she/her) is a strategist, movement lawyer, and consultant with over two decades of experience supporting organizations, coalitions, and campaigns advancing immigrant rights, gender equity, reproductive justice, racial justice, and criminal legal reform. As founder of Just Counsel, she partners with groups to navigate growth, transition, and crisis—bringing a blend of strategic vision and hands-on leadership that bridges planning with execution.

Her consulting work includes contingency and scenario planning, governance and membership restructuring, campaign and policy design, and values-based organizational development. She has led multi-organizational processes to assess movement risk and capacity, build rapid-response infrastructure, and prepare for shifting political landscapes. She also advises on legislative and policy strategy, helping groups draft, analyze, and advance proposals while aligning advocacy with long-term goals.

Alisa has stepped into critical roles during leadership transitions, filling gaps across executive leadership, communications, human resources, and operations to ensure continuity. She has also guided organizations through restructuring and values-centered dissolutions, aligning bold vision with practical strategy.

Previously, Alisa served as Executive Director of the Immigrant Defense Project, where she spent a decade leading the organization through significant expansion. Under her tenure, the budget and staff quadrupled, and she oversaw policy advocacy, litigation, and communications strategies that advanced protections against detention and deportation. She developed initiatives on post-conviction relief and pardons, co-founded a national network advancing narrative change on criminalization, and regularly provided expert support to attorneys, advocates, and directly impacted communities.

Earlier in her career, Alisa worked at the NYC LGBT Community Center, where she supported organizing campaigns across housing, reproductive health, and gender justice. She began her political education as a young organizer in Chicago Public Schools and later at Stanford University. She holds a JD from NYU School of Law, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow and Equal Justice Works Fellow.

Alisa is licensed to practice law in New York and works on all aspects of Just Counsel’s engagements, bringing in other members of the team where needed.