Ellen Leonida

Leonida attended University of California, Santa Cruz, as an undergraduate majoring in American Studies. In 1993, she received a bachelor's degree with College Honors and Highest Honors in the major and was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa.

She attended law school at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley, California. In law school she was director of the Homeless Outreach Project and a founding member of the Boalt Hall Chapter of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as well as a volunteer at the California Asylum Representation Clinic. Ms. Leonida received her JD in 1996. On December 3, 1996, she was admitted to California State Bar.[1]

In 1997, Leonida joined the Contra Costa County Public Defender's Office, initially working as a law clerk after she graduated from law school. Prior to joining the office she interned at the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and the Youth Law Center. Since 1997, she has had experience doing both misdemeanor and felony cases. Before leaving, Leonida handled a felony caseload in the Richmond branch of the Public Defender's Office.

Her most famous client from her state public defender days is Scott Dyleski. In the fall of 2005, Dyleski, then 16, was accused of beating the wife, Pamela Vitale, of prominent criminal defense attorney Daniel Horowitz to death in their Lafayette, California home. She became his attorney after the Dyleski family fired their attorney, Thomas McKenna due to a conflict of interest. McKenna had defended the driver of a car that killed Dyleski's sister and another passenger in 2002. Dyleski was later convicted of the charges and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.