Maggie Ellinger-Locke

Maggie Ellinger-Locke, she/her, is a movement lawyer who brings more than a decade of grassroots-driven advocacy to Alliance for Justice’s state policy work. As Senior State Law & Legislative Counsel, she equips nonprofit staff and volunteers nationwide with the training, technical assistance, and strategic support they need to flex their power over policy and lawmaking.

Before joining AFJ, Maggie served as a staff attorney at Howard University School of Law’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, partnering with frontline organizers pursuing racial and environmental justice. At Greenpeace USA, she split her time between the general counsel’s office — guiding the organization through complex nonprofit-compliance issues and supporting activists facing criminal charges — and the democracy campaign team, where she played a key role in a national coalition fighting state-level anti-protest bills. Earlier, at the Marijuana Policy Project, she steered legislative efforts across 14 states, helping secure landmark cannabis policy reforms. Maggie began her career in private practice focused on criminal defense and family law.

A longtime member and organizer with the National Lawyers Guild, Maggie trains activists and legal observers and helps shield movement actors from repression.

When she isn’t working to expand communities’ power in law and policy, Maggie is chasing two spirited toddlers, coaxing vegetables out of a small backyard garden, and plotting the next collective win for people and the planet.