Leslee Klein

Leslee Klein, 78, beloved wife, mother, grandmother and sister, died in Jamaica Plain on November 1, 2026. Leslee was born in Manhattan on July 3, 1948. She grew up on Avenue A and 4th Street on the Lower East Side. Tompkins Square Park was her neighborhood playground.

She applied her legendary drive and ingenuity to secure a slot in the High School of Music and Art. The school always needed oboe players to lead the orchestras and bands, so she convinced her parents to buy her an oboe. For four years she schlepped from Avenue A to 135th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The day she graduated from Music and Art, she threw away that oboe.

She ventured beyond civilization to Albany in 1966 to attend SUNY. There she made many lifelong friends (the vaunted Albanians), and evolved from sorority girl to political activist in the late ’60s, protesting the Vietnam War. She graduated in 1970 and moved to Cambridge. She was a mainstay for years at the RedBook, the radical bookstore.

She became executive director of the Association of Neighborhood Law Clinics (ANLC) in 1974. ANLC was a pilot program funded by the Legal Services Corporation. There she funded a variety of local law firms to provide support for tenants’ rights, immigration services, and civil legal services.

In 1979 she became deputy director at Mass Correctional Legal Services (MCLS), the agency established to provide legal services to people incarcerated in the Massachusetts prison system. She started New England School of Law’s night program in 1982.

She said, “Friends told me I couldn’t work full time and do law school. Then they told me I couldn’t do both, and start a new relationship. Then they told me I couldn’t do all that and manage step-children. Well, I did it all”. After four years of fulltime work at MCLS and law school nights, she received her JD in 1986.

She became the executive director of Cambridgeport Problem Center (CPC), a multi-disciplinary agency providing an integrated program of legal services and psychological counseling to its low-income clients. She brought CPC back from financial insolvency, rebranded the agency to become Cambridge Legal Services and Counselling Center (CLSACC, now De Novo), and imbued it with an incredible dynamism fueled by its robust roster of volunteers. She stepped down in 2007 after 23 years at the helm.

As a board member of both the Boston Bar Association, and the Massachusetts Bar Association, she advocated forcefully to dedicate the associations’ grant funding for legal services for low-income people. In 2006 the National Lawyers Guild Mass presented her with its Lawyer Award in recognition of her work.

Leslee had fabulous style. Her shoe collection would rival anyone’s. She initially feared she wouldn’t get the ANLC job, because she used red fingernail polish. She was a New Yorker all the way. Her fondest childhood memory was of her father taking her to meet Sandy Koufax at Ebbets Field. She did not suffer fools lightly, but she relished a good dance party.

She loved to travel. In 1979 she visited Cuba to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Revolution. She and Mike roamed Asia, Africa, and Europe. She deeply cherished taking her granddaughters Lily and Julia Sansons, on a safari to South Africa in 2015. Unfortunately, due to failing health, that was the last big trip she was able to make. She loved the beach; she and Mike spent many summers at Lucy Vincent Beach on the Vineyard, and later at Playa la Ropa in Zihuatanejo for their winter beach sojourns. They spent their winters since 2011 in their beloved second city, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Leslee leaves her husband, Mike Gondek; her step-daughters Megan DeGrass and her husband Ryan, of Marblehead, and Rebecca Lewis and her husband Craig of Littleton, and her sister Rhona of New York. She was the loving Rara to her grandchildren Lily Sansons, Julia Sansons, Sean Lewis, Bradley Lewis, Kelly DeGrass and Jack DeGrass. We will hold a Memorial Service at a later date.

Leslee was a strong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). If friends wish to make a donation in her honor, that would be meaningful.