October Speaker - Dana Cody, President, Life Legal Defense Foundation

Dana Cody has been championing the rights of women and the unborn for over twenty years. She started as a lay-counselor to women in crisis pregnancies, then fulfilled her passion to protect women and children victimized by abortion by obtaining her Juris Doctor from Western State University in 1993.

After graduating from law school, she accepted a post-graduate fellowship with the Rutherford Institute, organized to protect religious liberty and free speech rights. Ms. Cody immediately passed the bar and continued as staff counsel for Rutherford Institute’s Western Regional Office.

After leaving her position as staff counsel, she went to work as a consultant to the Assembly Education Committee, then chaired by pro-life Assembly Member Steve Baldwin. Assemblyman Baldwin was a member of the Assembly Health Committee, which allowed Ms. Cody to consult Mr. Baldwin on life issues.

In 1996, Ms. Cody accepted the invitation to serve as a board member of Life Legal Defense Foundation. After leaving her consulting position she accepted the position as Life Legal’s Executive Director.

Ms. Cody was co-counsel in People’s Advocate v. ICOC, a suit challenging the constitutionality of the Governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to fund human embryonic stem cell research.

Ms. Cody served as an adjunct professor at Trinity Law School in Santa Ana, California, having taught the course The Right to Life and the Law. She also served as a Judge Pro Tem for the Sacramento Superior Court at the Carol Miller Justice Center.

Dana Cody lives in the Jacksonville, Florida area with her husband, Doug, a PGA teaching professional. She has one son, Jeffrey Townsend, who serves in the United States Navy. He resides in Florida with his wife Jennifer, and their children, Evan and Kiley.