Meet Maryland Arsht Fellow Leslie Hawes
Join us in welcoming Leslie Hawes as Volunteer Legal Advocates’ Maryland Roxana Cannon Arsht Fellow.* Leslie’s background spans general litigation, legal writing, and more than a decade of nonprofit leadership, most recently as Executive Director of Court Watch Montgomery. We sat down with Leslie to talk about her career path, what drives her work, and the impact she hopes to make in this role.
Tell us about your career journey and what drew you to the Arsht Fellowship.
I began my legal career as a corporate attorney in Southern California, representing large banks and bankruptcy trustees, and later worked at a Wall Street firm in Boston, handling complex litigation within Chapter 11 bankruptcies. After moving to Maryland in 2005 for my husband’s career, I chose not to take a third bar exam and instead spent several years writing for Bloomberg Law while raising my family. I then transitioned into nonprofit work, spending 15 years focused on supporting women and children, as a shelter case worker, Court Appointed Special Advocate, literacy volunteer, nonprofit board member, and ultimately Executive Director of Court Watch Montgomery. After I joined the Maryland bar in 2025, a colleague sent me the Arsht Fellowship posting and said, “This has your name all over it.” She was right. It was exactly what I was looking to do: continue helping underserved women and children in my community through the practice of law.
You’ve worked in both large law firms and nonprofit organizations. How have those experiences shaped your approach to legal advocacy?
Working in big law taught me how to work across large teams, navigate difficult clients, and advocate zealously before all kinds of courts, from smaller state courts to the Ninth Circuit. It taught me discipline, structure, and the benefits of daily hard work. Nonprofit work taught me how trauma-informed advocacy can take many forms and affect many people, whether through fundraising or frontline work. I learned that every effort to help others can have a ripple effect not only within that organization but also across other organizations and the community. No act is too small to matter. My work at Volunteer Legal Advocates will help me marry the best of my for-profit legal and nonprofit experiences by working zealously in the law to help as many survivors as possible in my community.
What did your role at Court Watch Montgomery teach you about how survivors experience the court system?
It reinforced how critical legal and advocacy support is. Over more than a decade of data, we saw that survivors were granted protective orders about 40% of the time when unrepresented, compared to 74–77% when supported by an attorney or advocate. We also found that the presence of court watchers improved courtroom safety practices like properly timed staggered exits. This data highlighted for me the profound impact that the support systems around victims in courtrooms can have in the outcomes achieved and made me want to continue this work as a practicing attorney at Volunteer Legal Advocates.
As our new Arsht Fellow in Maryland, you’re focusing on family law and protective order cases for domestic violence survivors. What impact do you hope to have in this role?
While I greatly enjoyed my work at Court Watch Montgomery, I often found myself sitting in court and wishing that I were standing up at the petitioner’s table arguing in court. I saw many victims seeking relief without knowing how to voice their trauma or ask for the forms of available relief. I knew that as an attorney, I could help these victims obtain better outcomes. By being back in court, I hope to be a frontline advocate for survivors at one of the most stressful times in their life, make the process easier to navigate, and be a meaningful part of those statistics that help survivors obtain better outcomes in our courtrooms.
*Volunteer Legal Advocates is honored to host the Roxana Cannon Arsht Law Fellowship and to celebrate Judge Arsht’s groundbreaking achievements as Delaware’s fifth female lawyer and first female judge. We proudly recognize her pioneering spirit and enduring legacy through this two-year program empowering female attorneys returning to the workforce after a career break.
