Donna Lenhoff is a seasoned attorney, advisor, writer, and policy architect who has worked for over 40 years for progressive employment law and policy – as an advocate for women’s and workers’ rights before the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of federal and state government and more recently as a policy implementer within the US Department of Labor (DOL). She has often been profiled for her work, including as part of the Veteran Feminists of America’s Pioneer History Project.
Currently, Donna leads Donna Lenhoff Associates, providing legal and technical assistance to registered apprenticeship (RA) programs and other RA stakeholders on implementing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility requirements. She also serves as Senior Consultant to Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), advocating for federal policies and operations that promote equitable inclusion of women in construction and manufacturing trades. Appointed by US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Donna represents CWIT on the Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship.
From 2017 through 2020, Donna worked, first as an employee and then as a consultant, with DOL’s Office of Apprenticeship on implementing the Equal Employment Opportunity regulations that govern registered apprenticeship programs. From 2011 to 2017, she served as Senior Civil Rights Advisor to the Director of the DOL Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). In that capacity, she led the initiatives to update OFCCP’s Sex Discrimination Regulations and to strengthen OFCCP’s enforcement in the construction industry.
From 2006 through 2011, Donna was the first full-time Legislative and Policy Director of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and founded NELA’s Washington, DC, office. In that capacity, she pioneered NELA’s Judicial Nominations work, inaugurated its monthly Washington Report, On the Hill, and was a primary author its review of EEOC intake, Workers’ Rights in Jeopardy: EEOC’s Enforcement of Equal Employment Opportunity Laws Impeded by Inadequate Funding.
Prior to NELA, Donna served as Executive Director of the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing-Home Reform (now called the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care); taught Employment Discrimination Law as an adjunct law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law; and was Vice President and General Counsel of the National Partnership for Women & Families (formerly the Women’s Legal Defense Fund).
Ms. Lenhoff’s proudest professional accomplishment was leading the successful, nine-year, multi-strategic campaign for enactment of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993; National Public Radio commentator Ron Elving chronicled her role in Conflict and Compromise: How Congress Makes the Law (1996). Her areas of expertise include the history, law, and policy of sex-based employment discrimination; work/family policies; and affirmative action and non-discrimination in employment, especially in apprenticeship. She has written and spoken extensively on these topics.
Ms. Lenhoff received her JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her BA with Honors in the College from the University of Chicago. She lives in Washington, DC, and Lewes, DE, with her husband Michael Jacobson and slightly goofy Lab-Corgi mix Oliver Stephen Jacobson the First and Only.
