Alumni Profiles
Vee Leonard
by Andre Salhab
Student Writer
Vee Leonard (JD 99) didn’t travel down the path most would call a typical road to law school. She got off the highway and waited a bit before getting back on.
At the age of 37, Leonard went back to school to finish her bachelor’s degree at the University of Central Florida. She earned a degree in legal studies and said her professor continuously tried to get her to attend law school.
“I had no plans to go to law school,” said Leonard, who never had aspirations as a child to be a lawyer. “But while I was at UCF, most of my professors asked me, ‘are you going to law school?’ and I told them that I was just here for that little piece of paper.”
That would soon change. After working as a paralegal for a year or so, one of her professors called and told her it was time for her to apply to law school. And she did.
“I liked learning; it is just very stimulating,” said Leonard, who is general counsel at Florida Gulf Coast University. “Some people say (law school) is the worst three years of their life, but for me it wasn’t. I just loved it…. It was strenuous, I wouldn’t say it was hard, but it was a lot of work.”
Nothing was more difficult, though, than the trials and tribulations of Leonard’s life experiences. After she and her first husband divorced, Leonard struggled as a single mother to support three children. She said she reached one point where her family was living on food stamps.
“Sometimes I would go to places that passed out food and stood in line. We just didn’t have any,” Leonard said. “Things were hard.”
Adulthood wasn’t the first time she experienced hard times. Looking back on her childhood, Leonard said she hadn’t realized that she was poor. Her father passed away when she was young, but her mother always managed to take care of the family’s needs, and Leonard said she never noticed the economic hardships and said she had a happy childhood.
Now, as a wife, a mother of five children and the grandmother of five grandchildren, Leonard hopes her children and others can learn from her life lessons. She makes every effort to continue to grow and learn, as well as to encourage others to always reach toward their aspirations.
“I didn’t go to law school until I was in my mid-to-late 30s,” Leonard said. “If you want it bad enough, there is a way to get whatever it is you want. You just have to be focused.”
