Legal Food Hub year in review

By supporting those who grow, produce, and sell our local food, we're helping to foster a sustainable, resilient, and just food system. And a healthy and thriving local food system means a healthy environment, climate, and economy for all New Englanders.

Our focus

The Legal Food Hub provides pro bono legal assistance by matching qualified attorneys in our network with…
Farmers
Food Entrepreneurs

& the Organizations that Support Them

Our Work

Over the last year, our volunteer attorneys donated more than 2,000 hours of time to help farmers, food businesses, and organizations navigate legal issues. In addition to matching participants with free legal help, we continued to expand our educational outreach online and created dozens of free guides to help small farmers and food businesses understand legal essentials that could affect their operations. Here are just a few highlights of our work in 2020. Hover over each photo, then click to read more.
Go Back

Another Milestone year

This was a year marked by challenge and turmoil in our country and our world.

In spite of it, New England’s farmers, food entrepreneurs, and food justice-focused nonprofits and community groups forged ahead. We salute the resilience of the movers and shakers who found ways to nourish our communities and lend a hand to neighbors.

At the Legal Food Hub, we worked to support these businesses and organizations through pro bono legal assistance. This year, we surpassed the 750-case mark regionwide, with 105 of those handled in 2020 alone. We also launched a new website that makes it easier to access our services. And we developed dozens of new easy-to-use legal guides addressing the topics our participants ask about most, from forming a business entity to leasing farmland to protecting a brand. The Legal Food Hub is proud to support the people nourishing our region.

OUR HAPPY CLIENTS
FIRMS in our network in four states
NEW ENGLAND STATES SERVED BY LEGAL FOOD HUB
CASES placed since June 2014
MILLION dollars leveraged since 2014

Latest News

distinguished service awards

The Legal Food Hub Team

Maggie Super Church
Maggie Super Church
Vice President for Healthy and Resilient Communities
Maggie leads the Legal Food Hub as the Vice President for Healthy and Resilient Communities. For over 20 years, Maggie has been a consultant and nonprofit leader on both the state and national level in urban planning, real estate and community development, and environmental protection.
Sara Dewey
Sara Dewey
Director of Farm & Food Initiative
Sara Dewey is director of CLF’s Farm and Food Initiative. Sara has worked on environmental, agricultural, and energy issues as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate and as policy director of an environmental governance initiative at Yale University.
Phelps Turner
Phelps Turner
Senior Attorney
Phelps Turner is a Senior Attorney for CLF Maine, where he works in the Clean Energy and Climate Change, Healthy and Resilient Communities, and Environmental Justice programs. Before joining CLF, Phelps was an environmental litigation associate at Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen in Boston.
Elena Mihaly
Elena Mihaly
Senior Attorney
Elena Mihaly is a Senior Attorney for CLF Vermont. Early in her tenure, she helped to launch the Legal Food Hub. Today, she focuses on developing and implementing solutions to protect public health, enhance community climate preparedness, and ensure all communities have equal access to a clean and healthy environment.
Mary Rose Scozzafava, Esq.
Mary Rose Scozzafava, Esq.
Senior Fellow
Mary Rose Scozzafava, Esq., is a former partner from Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr interested in sustainable agriculture and local food systems. Currently, she is a board member and clerk of LexFarm, an organically certified community farm in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Mary Lovell Egan
Mary Lovell Egan
Regional Coordinator
Mary Lovell Egan is the Regional Coordinator for the Legal Food Hub. She previously worked at Harvard Business School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Mary brings great experience as a farm team member and food entrepreneur to her work with the Hub.
Colin Antaya
Colin Antaya
Legal Fellow
Colin is a legal fellow at CLF where he focuses on the development of legal and policy approaches to reduce the use of pesticides in New England, in addition to supporting the Legal Food Hub. Before joining CLF, Colin clerked for the Honorable Steven D. Ecker of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
Gordon Merrick
Gordon Merrick
Legal Fellow
Gordon is a legal fellow working with CLF and our partner, Vermont Law School. Prior to attending law school, Gordon wore many hats, including working in community and political organizing, farm and service industry jobs, and emergency medicine.
Sophia Kruszewski
Sophia Kruszewski
Assistant Professor and Clinic Director
Sophia Kruszewski is an Assistant Professor at Vermont Law School, where she also serves as the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS) Clinic Director. In this role, she oversees the Vermont Legal Food Hub and supervises students working on Hub cases placed in the Food and Agriculture Clinic.
Whitney Shields
Whitney Shields
Project Manager and Program Coordinator
Whitney Shields serves as Project Manager at the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School. She is also the Program Coordinator for the Vermont Legal Food Hub, running its day-to-day operations and conducting state and local outreach to stakeholders.