About Renée Steinhagen

Together with famed civil rights attorney Arthur Kinoy, NJ Appleseed Executive Director Renée Steinhagen helped found the public interest law center in the 1990s. Under her leadership, it has helped to protect the environment, strengthen voting rights’ defeat privatization of public infrastructure, expand access to health care, block land use practices that are unsustainable and harmful to the community, and stand up for the rights of those who live in common ownership associations.

Since 2009, Renée has represented NJ Appleseed on the leadership team of the New Jersey for Healthcare Coalition, which is focused on issues arising from implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She played a similar role with the Help America Vote Act, chairing a 30-member plus coalition formed to aid implementation of that 2002 law. and was a founding member of the Campaign to Protect Community Healthcare, which focused on protecting the public during hospital closings or sales. PLANewark, which advocates for responsible development in NJA’s home city, grew out of Renée’s efforts to assist a group of Newark residents in opposing the expansion of surface parking lots in the City and she continues to work closely with the group.

Among other honors, Renée’s advocacy has been recognized with the 2016 Riparian Award for her efforts on behalf of Hoboken’s Fund for a Better Waterfront, the Evanoff-Schucter Award for Organizing, presented by NJ Citizen Action, and the Mary Philbrook Public Interest Law Award, bestowed by Rutgers Law School in Camden.

She has authored or co-authored a number of publications for NJ Appleseed, including Surprise Medical Bills: What they are and how to stop them,” The Database Dilemma: Has New Jersey met best practices of implementing the Statewide Voter Registration System?” and Where Do Our Children Play: The Importance and Design of School Yards.

Before establishing NJ Appleseed, Renée practiced labor law and worked as a Housing Analyst at the Community Service Society, which fights poverty and inequality in New York City. From 2003 to 2004, she was a member of the Department of Banking and Insurance’s Healthcare Coverage Task Force, Committee on the Uninsured, to which she was appointed by the Governor.

Renée graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a B.A. in Politics and obtained her J.D. at the University of Chicago. She also has an M.P.A. from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, where she studied on a Rockefeller Public Service Fellowship.