McLeod '07 Honored with Law School Association's Taylor Reveley Award
The William & Mary Law School Association recognized Alexis A. McLeod '07 during graduation on May 13 as recipient of the 2012 Taylor Reveley Award for her work on behalf of disenfranchised people, both in this country and internationally. The award, which will be presented to McLeod in person at a later date, recognizes outstanding commitment to public service by an alumnus or alumna of the Law School who has graduated within the previous 10 years.
"Alexis has truly fulfilled the ideal of the citizen lawyer in the five years since her graduation," Dean Davison M. Douglas told the audience.
The association created the award to recognize Taylor Reveley's efforts to promote the concept of the "citizen lawyer," an attorney who uses his or her education to make a broad and lasting impact on a local, national or international level. Reveley, who served as dean of the Law School from 1998 to 2008, is the 27th president of the College of William & Mary and the John Stewart Bryan Professor of Jurisprudence. This is the second award created by the Law School Association to recognize public service; the other is the Citizen-Lawyer Award.
McLeod currently serves as the director of development for My Friend's Place, a nonprofit drop-in center in Los Angeles that offers a comprehensive array of health, educational, and therapeutic services and free emergency assistance to more than 1,700 homeless youth and their children each year. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the U.S. National Committee for UN Women, an independent non-profit organization that supports the mission of UN women and the social, political, and economic equality of women and girls around the world.
Following her graduation from law school, McLeod was a Morrison & Foerster Equal Justice Fellow. The fellowship paid her salary for two years at the Public Law Center in Santa Ana, Calif., where she helped provide legal and other assistance to low- income persons affected by HIV and AIDS. She later worked with the International Justice Mission in South Asia, where she assisted with the prosecution of sex trafficking and forced prostitution offenses. In addition, she worked in Rwanda to combat the practice of illegal land seizure from widows and orphans.
McLeod was honored at her law school graduation with the 2007 Thurgood Marshall Award, which is given to a member of each graduating class who has demonstrated a powerful commitment to public service.