Nako Takes The Reins
Lindsay Nako, Executive Director, Impact Fund.
Lindsay Nako shares her thoughts upon succeeding to the role of Executive Director…
The Impact Fund has long shaped my career, including in ways that few people know about. I have worked with the Impact Fund since 2007, when I joined Ellis v. Costco as a junior associate at a private law firm in Oakland. By then, Jocelyn Larkin and the Impact Fund were already leaders of the plaintiff-side class action community, litigating some of the biggest employment discrimination cases in the country. The same year, I attended the very first Class Action Training Institute. I left with an enormous binder of materials and the sense of belonging to a rich community of lawyers committed to ensuring that class actions remain a viable way to access courts, particularly for those whose voices don’t often hold sway in our oldest and most influential institutions.
The magic of the Impact Fund lies in that community – diverse in experience, practice area, location, identity, and united in our commitment to ensuring that the court system serves everyone. The Impact Fund believes that the justice system is a hollow ideal unless it serves those without wealth and political capital just as it serves those with them.
Lindsay has been a part of the Impact Fund family since 2007.
When I started working at the Impact Fund in 2015, I was in transition in my own life. I had a 10-month-old baby and wasn’t sure if the legal profession was still for me. In truth, it wasn’t. As originally conceived, this profession was not intended for a first-generation lawyer, woman of color, new mother, building a family while tamping out a path toward a fulfilling livelihood and a more just future. But again, Jocelyn Larkin and the Impact Fund community were there. With the mentorship of Jocelyn and others, I found a sustainable model of advocacy and training, secure in the knowledge that the hours I worked were helping others while also making me a better lawyer.
After eight years of leading the Impact Fund’s litigation and training programs, I am honored and humbled to succeed Jocelyn as its Executive Director. I look forward to this new challenge and to working more closely with all of our grantees, staff, and supporters. I can’t wait to keep growing the Impact Fund community, welcoming new class and impact litigators, and finding new ways to support each other in the work of bringing unheard voices into courtrooms across the country.