Wheatly Gulmi – EdLaw, Senior Counsel
Wheatly Gulmi is Senior Counsel at the EdLaw Project at the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) in Massachusetts. The EdLaw Project supports all of the attorneys representing indigent clients in Massachusetts, including CPCS staff attorneys and private counsel. In this role, Wheatly provides technical assistance, direct representation, training, and advice to clients, attorneys, and the public on issues of education law. She engages in direct representation and assists attorneys representing clients when issues of special education, school discipline, and school stability impact a court-involved youth’s life. In so doing, she works to combat the school-to-prison pipeline by ensuring that youth have access to specialized educational advocacy. This has been, and continues to be, the focus of her work over the past nearly 20 years. Prior to her current role, Wheatly owned a private practice specializing in education law and also contracted with CPCS to provide representation to court-involved youth and families involved in the court’s child welfare system, which virtually always also involved issues of education law and school stability. Wheatly is involved in her community, serving on non-profit boards of trustees and through her involvement in several organizations focusing on education and equity. Wheatly earned her undergraduate degree from Skidmore College and her Juris Doctor from Western New England College, School of Law.