It was only a matter of time before attorney Janella Leibovitz turned her passion for advocating for children in foster care into a career. Growing up in Miami, Leibovitz volunteered at a shelter for abused, neglected and abandoned teens when she was in high school. “When I walked into the bathroom of the shelter, the walls were black with mildew,” she says. “The next time I visited, I brought my Ajax and bleach, and I cleaned the walls. I’m no messiah or anything; I’m just a regular person who wants to see a better world for everybody.”
It’s an ethos she’s carried with her through college—where she was the first teaching fellow in the University of Florida’s Gator TeamChild Juvenile Law Clinic—and into her career, first as an attorney in the private sector and now as the supervising senior staff attorney at Legal Aid of Manasota, where she oversees the nonprofit’s Legal Lifeline for Youth program. Legal Aid of Manasota is the only legal aid organization providing comprehensive legal representation to kids in Sarasota and Manatee counties. The program, which was founded in 2019, provides free legal help for foster youth for issues like dependency, social security, injunctions for protection, name changes, guardianship, adoptions, child neglect cases and more.
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