National Whistleblower Legal Defense & Education Fund

The Fund was founded in 1997 by the partners of the whistleblower and qui tam law firm of Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto due to the tremendous need to find attorneys to represent whistleblowers and also to provide representation to the National Whistleblower Center as the NWC battled to increase legal protections for whistleblowers. Since 1997, the Fund has sponsored a whistleblower legal assistance program for whistleblowers. In addition to representing whistleblowers in precedent setting cases, the Fund has attempted to locate private sector attorneys to provide representation to whistleblower. This program, operated free of charge for all whistleblowers, has connected thousands of whistleblowers with attorneys. The Fund has never charged a fee to whistleblowers for these services and, it does not charge a referral fee for the attorneys who have taken on cases. The Fund accepts intakes from both government and private sector whistleblowers, and reviews cases concerning retaliation, qui tam, and lawsuits filed under the Dodd-Frank Act, among numerous other laws In addition to these programs, the Fund provided legal representation to the National Whistleblower Center since 1992. This representation has primarily consisted of filing amicus curiae (“Friend of the Court”) briefs on behalf of the National Whistleblower Center on significant precedent-setting cases. Also, Fund attorneys and law clerks have worked directly with the NWC, private law firms and/or the Trustees of the Fund in providing representation to whistleblowers in precedent-setting cases. Currently, with the consent of the whistleblower-intake, the Fund also refers some cases to the NWC’s Legal Assistance Program. The NWC’s program is independent from the Fund. The Fund also co-founded the educational and advocacy web page www.whistleblowers.org, the primary public education resource of the Fund and the National Whistleblower Center. The Fund also published the whistleblowersblog.org.