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Legal Momentum, formerly known as NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, is the oldest legal advocacy group for women in the United States. Founded in 1970, Legal Momentum is a liberal multi-issue organization dedicated to advancing women’s rights across the country. It is headquartered in New York City with an office in Washington, D.C. that focuses primarily on policy initiatives and immigration issues.

In its advocacy role, Legal Momentum maintains publicly-available information on current and recent cases in litigation of interest to legal practitioners and people involved in or affected by gender discrimination.

Background
In 1970, the founders of NOW founders incorporated the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund as a separate national 501(c)(3) organization to provide legal advocacy for women’s rights. In 2004, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund changed its name to Legal Momentum.

Legal Momentum began its work with legal docket of several employment cases, including Sellers v. Colgate Palmolive Co. The decision of the Seventh Circuit that case struck down a company’s policy barring women from jobs that require lifting more than 35 pounds.

One of the organization's most prominent achievements was working with then-senator Joseph Biden and the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee to help draft and pass the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the early 1990s. Legal Momentum continues to advocate for re-authorization of VAWA through National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence.

Mission
The mission of Legal Momentum as described on the website is to use litigation and public policy advocacy to advance economic and personal security for women and girls.

Legal Momentum's Priority Issues
The issues Legal Momentum focuses upon for litigation and public policy advocacy are:
 * Non-tradtional jobs: working with career and technical education (CTE) high schools in New York City to improve recruitment and retention of girls into non-traditional employment fields such as construction and engineering, and increasing administrator awareness of and compliance with federal legal requirements under Title IX, the Carl Perkins Act, and other federal statutes.
 * Employment and pregnancy discrimination law.
 * Reauthorization of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and poverty issues relating to single mothers.
 * Training legal professionals and advocates nationwide on the rights, protections, and services available to victims and survivors of violence, and litigating workplace rights for victims of violence.
 * Promoting gender equity, challenging gender bias in educational institutions, immigration policy, health care and reproductive choice, and in the courts.

Major Initiatives and Involvement

 * Wins Sprogis v. United Airlines (marital status discrimination and age discrimination), 1971.
 * Launches the Project on Equal Education Rights (PEER) to study and monitor the impact of Title IX regulations, 1974.
 * Establishes the Judicial Appointment Project and the National Judicial Education Program to increase the number of female federal judges and eliminate gender bias in the courts, 1978-88.
 * Wins Tallon v. Liberty Hose, (women as firefighters and gender bias), 1982.
 * Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards (workplace pornography constitutes sexual harassment), 1991 and 1995.
 * Crafts the Violence Against Women Act, 1994.
 * Authors and works to enact the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, 1994.
 * Amicus curiae in United States v. Virginia involving the Virginia Military Institute's denial of admission to women, 1996.
 * Founded Women's eNews in 1999 as an online news service highlighting women's issues.
 * Lobbyist in favor of the Child and Dependent Care tax credit, 2001.
 * Apessos v. Memorial Press Group, (employer's discrimination against abuse victim by denying leave from work to obtain protection orders is unlawful), 2002.
 * Amicus curiae in Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 2003.
 * Argues United States v. The City of New York, (interpreting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as applied to welfare recipients), 2004.
 * Establishes the Equality Works program, which first focused on ensuring equal opportunity for women in rebuilding New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks, then advocated to increase the number of women in high-paying, male-dominated fields, such as construction and firefighting.
 * Establishes the Pipeline Project, aimed at increasing the numbers of high school girls in high-wage non-traditional career tracks in New York City Career and Technical High Schools.

Name Confusion and Notability
When Legal Momentum changed its name in 2004 it appeared to lose its identity in the eyes of both the non-profit world and the general public, and so hired a marketing firm to address the loss.