Family Defense

Executive Director

Diane L. Redleaf is the Executive Director of the Family Defense Center. A child and family advocate since she graduated from Stanford Law School in 1979, Ms. Redleaf has brought more than a dozen major systemic reform cases on behalf of families, spearheaded major legislative reforms in Illinois, and represented parents in hundreds of juvenile court and administrative proceedings. She has brought numerous precedential appeals and led a number of amicus briefing efforts, both in Illinois and nationally. She has conducted many training programs for attorneys, social workers, and parents, and been active in numerous juvenile court reform committees. From 2000-2001, she served as President of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

Ms. Redleaf has taught child welfare law at the University of Chicago Law School and client counseling at the Loyola University School of Law. She began her distinguished legal career at the 18th Street Office of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. There, she started The Children's Rights Project in 1984, where she remained a supervisory attorney until 1996. From 1991 to 1996, she was the Sidley and Austin Fellow at LAFC, coordinating extensive pro bono work with Sidley and Austin attorneys. Faced in 1996 with severe Congressional restrictions on the work legal services attorneys could perform for their clients, she formed, with LAFC's Litigation Director Robert Lehrer, a public interest law firm dedicated to continuing social policy and child welfare litigation ("Lehrer and Redleaf"), which she co-led for nine years. In August 2005, Ms. Redleaf opened her own private practice, The Redleaf Law Firm, handling primarily child welfare matters (including Dupuy v. Samuels ) and some child custody cases, at which time she began work on the development of the Family Defense Center.

Ms. Redleaf has received numerous awards for her work, including an award from the Department of Children and Family Services for her drafting of the Family Preservation Act; the Equal Justice Award (twice) for her work at LAFC; and she was named, in March 2002, one of "30 Tough Lawyers in Chicago" by Chicago Magazine. In May 2002, her own work in Dupuy v. Samuels was featured in a one-hour segment on Dateline NBC titled "Clearing Names." In 2003, she and her former partner, Robert Lehrer, received the Chicago Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Pro Bono Award for their work in Dupuy.

Ms. Redleaf is a founding member of the Illinois Task Force on Child Support and the Healthy Mothers and Babies Coalition. She has represented social service agencies, including Kaleidoscope, Inc., ChildServ, The Children's Place, The Larkin Center, and the Consulate of Mexico. She has also worked in collaboration or as co-counsel with several public interest organizations, including the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Equip for Equality, and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

Staff Attorney

Melissa Staas is a Staff Attorney at the Family Defense Center. Melissa received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in May, 2007, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Children's Legal Rights Journal. Prior to attending law school, she gained valuable experience as a grant-writer with Centro San Bonifacio (a grassroots, not-for-profit organization in Chicago, IL) and coordinator with Disability Services at the University of Minnesota. Melissa received her bachelor of arts degrees in Psychology and Women's Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Allegra Cira is a Staff Attorney at the Family Defense Center. Allegra received her J.D. with a Certificate in Pulic Interest Law, cum laude, from  DePaul University College of Law in May, 2009. At DePaul, Allegra served on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Social Justice and was awarded the National Association of Women Judges Justice Ginsburg Scholarship. During law school, se interned at the Legal Assistance Foundation, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and the Office of the Illinois Attorney General. Prior to law school, Allegra contributed to domestic anti-poverty initiatives as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow, a volunteer tax preparation project coordinator with the Children's Defense Fund and a Program Associate with the Congressional Hunger Center. Allegra received her bachelor's degree in Communications from the University of Miami, with majors in English and Film. She is fluent in Spanish. 

Administration

Mayetis Dawson is the Office Administrator for the Family Defense Center. She received her degree in public relations from DePaul University in June 2008. She is currently working on a Master’s in Business Administration at Roosevelt University.

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