Leigh-Ann Durant is a senior legal and business executive with over 20 years of experience in the global biopharmaceutical industry, 10 of those years were with a major Boston law firm (partner) and 11 years have been in-house at a fast paced, dynamic global biopharma company.
Leigh-Ann currently oversees the day-to-day legal affairs for all US research, development and medical activities for EMD Serono, Inc., the US division of world’s oldest chemical and pharmaceutical company, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. She has demonstrated expertise in oversight, provision and management of legal services to global clients, turning legal strategy into business action, analytical problem solving, strategic thinking, corporate governance, commercial and corporate transactions, legal and regulatory compliance, risk mitigation, business operations, and executive leadership and management skills.
Prior to going in-house, Leigh-Ann was a Partner at Nixon Peabody, LLP, where she was responsible for complex commercial litigation, healthcare litigation, medical privacy issues, FDA issues, HIPAA and regulatory compliance for companies in the health care, pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology sectors. She also successfully litigated various high profile cases, including the first medical privacy class action case in Massachusetts.
Leigh-Ann has a lengthy history of service to and leadership on women’s issues and civil rights. Leigh-Ann currently serves as the Massachusetts Delegate and Board Member to the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations (“NCWBA”). She served as the Chair of the NCWBA’s 2014 National Gender Equity Summit, and has served as its Chair of Awards Committee for the past three years.
She also serves on the NCWBA’s Guys Overcoming Obstacles to Diversity (“GOOD”) Guys Committee which leads programs designed to break the impasse in women’s advancement by engaging people who have been missing from the conversation for too long – the GUYS! The GOOD Guys program presents the financial case for diversity and inclusion and provides up-to-date information about bias interrupters.
Leigh-Ann was the 2001-2002 President of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, one of the largest and most influential women's bars in the country. One of the signature initiatives of her Presidency was passage of the Massachusetts Contraceptive Coverage Bill. She served on the WBA’s Board of Directors for over 16 years. She also served on numerous WBA committees including as Chair of its In-House Counsel Committee, its Leadership Initiative Task Force, its Law Firm Advancement Committee, Pro Bono Committee, Publication Committee and Gala Chair, its Emeritus Board, and as a mentor on the WBA’s Women’s Leadership Initiative. For a number of years, Leigh-Ann served on the Board of the Woman’s Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the WBA.
While at Nixon Peabody, she founded, developed and implemented the Nixon Peabody’s Women’s Initiative, leading the program and developing curriculum to provide business development and advancement skills to women lawyers at the law firm.
Leigh-Ann also served on the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP) Steering Committee for Governor Mitt Romney, a group whose purpose was to increase the number of women appointed by the Governor to senior-level cabinet positions, agency heads and selected authorities and commissions in the Commonwealth. This Committee provided Governor Romney with the infamous “binders of women” for potential Gubernatorial appointments.
Leigh-Ann is a Charter Member of the National Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C. The Museum researches, collects and exhibits the contributions of women to the social, cultural, economic and political life of our nation in a context of world history.
Leigh-Ann was a speaker at the 2008 Gender Equity Conference and has spoken numerous times at the Massachusetts Women’s Conference.
She served on the Executive Committee of the Boston Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and on its Board of Directors for a number of years. In 2009, the Lawyer’s Committee awarded her its Outstanding Civil Rights Leadership Award. In 2007, the Supreme Judicial Court awarded her the Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards.