Starting as a rural outreach worker, Leighann began her activist journey by accompanying survivors of violence to legal appointments and to family and criminal court. Outrage at the routine and the rampant injustice she bore witness to ignited a life-long passion to work for change. Her activism over more than thirty years since then has taken a variety of forms, including through the provincial shelter association and through supporting survivors to get involved in work for change. When social upheaval in the 1990s revealed how quickly regressive social policy could roll back any gains made, Leighann went to law school and has been practicing family law with survivors of violence for the past fifteen years. She has seen first-hand the impact responsive, informed, tenacious feminist legal advocacy can have on the safety and freedom of women and children fleeing violence. She is committed to increasing access to this type of advocacy for survivors.
