Joan Meier
Executive Director
Ms. Meier is the Founder and Executive Director of DV LEAP and Professor of Clinical Law at George Washington University Law School. Over the past 20 years she has litigated hundreds of domestic violence cases at both the trial and appellate court levels. She has also engaged in national and local domestic violence advocacy efforts in collaboration with the domestic violence community, consulted for numerous organizations including the Department of Justice and American Bar Association, and delivers regular trainings and workshops for lawyers, judges, advocates, and mental health professionals. She has served on the Mayor’s Commission on Violence Against Women and several other boards and commissions addressing domestic violence. At the law school, Ms. Meier has founded three pioneering inter-disciplinary domestic violence clinical programs and has received awards for her scholarship. Ms. Meier was a featured commentator in the PBS documentary, Breaking the Silence: Children’s Voices, which aired in Fall 2005. Professor Meier received her B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1980, her J.D. cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and clerked on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Elizabeth Liu
Staff Attorney
Prior to joining DV LEAP, Ms. Liu was a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Domestic Violence Clinic where she supervised law students litigating civil protection order cases and co-taught the Clinic seminar. She previously worked as a staff attorney for NARAL Pro-Choice America and was an associate at Steptoe & Johnson, LLP. Ms. Liu has served as the President of the Board of Directors for the Asian Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project and is currently a member of their Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she served on the Board of the Women’s Law Association, and her B.A., with honors, from the University of Chicago.