DeShayla Strachan

DeShayla Strachan served the state of Florida by providing legal services to victims of sexual violence in her role as staff attorney for the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence. The legal assistance she provided included petitions for injunctions, immigration assistance, termination of parental rights, education law, employment law, and family law, among other things. She began her legal career as an assistant state attorney in Orlando and later an attorney for the Department of Children and Families’ Children’s Legal Services.

Prior to her second career in law, DeShayla was a journalist and worked as a reporter for several community newspapers and a national legal news service. She also served as a substitute teacher for nearly eight years. Whether as a journalist, child welfare attorney, or prosecutor, DeShayla has focused her legal work in public interest and social justice.

She graduated from Barry University School of Law in 2017, where she advocated for children as the lead senior editor of the Child and Family Law Journal, volunteered as an advocate for children for the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, and was a certified legal intern for the 9th Judicial Circuit’s Office of the State Attorney. In law school, she was a Dean’s Writing Fellow and Research Assistant, assisting with student and faculty scholarly work and holding writing labs for new law students. More recently, she has assisted immigrants with gaining naturalization, permanent residency, and other humanitarian immigration statuses.

DeShayla’s scholarly focus has been on race and the law. Her paper titled “A Triple Threat: The Black, Female Attorney” was published in the Southern Journal of Policy and Justice in 2017.