“I became a lawyer to advocate for the truth. I now advocate for women
to live their truth.”
Laurel O’Sullivan, J.D.
Laurel O’Sullivan, J.D. is a coach and a consultant with expertise in self empowerment. A life-long advocate, Laurel spent a decade as a public interest lawyer litigating environmental cases and pursuing policy reform at the state and national level. Laurel’s coaching practice is grounded in nearly twenty years of experience as a public interest lawyer, advocate/lobbyist, consultant, and motivational speaker.
Laurel is a professional speaker and has delivered keynote addresses as well as spoken at national conferences, such as Independent Sector, the Council on Foundations and Board Source. Thoursands of non-profit executive directors and government leaders have attended her talks. From 2010-2012, Laurel developed a national model in Illinois for nonprofit contracting reform and also spearheaded a national initiative to engage more philanthropic leaders in advocacy. She also debated the Mayor of Savannah, Georgia and won and has briefed and lobbied members of Congress. Throughout her career Laurel has been interviewed and appeared in national and local media, including tv, radio and print.
Laurel holds a B.A. with honors from Northwestern University and a J.D., with honors, from Chicago-Kent IIT College of Law. She lives in Evanston Illinois with her husband Tim and their blended family of five and their dog Blue. Laurel is an avid fitness enthusiast and hiker. She has hiked the Grand Canyon, the Appalachian Trail, the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, and Machu Picchu.
My Journey
From Lawyer to Consultant & Coach
In 2008 Laurel pivoted from a 12-year career as an environmental public interest lawyer to become the Vice President for Policy at the Donors Forum and a champion for changing the Illinois nonprofit and philanthropic sector. For five years Laurel raised millions of dollars while leading multiple state and national initiatives to empower nonprofits and engage philanthropy at a deeper level in public advocacy.
In 2013, Laurel started the Advocacy Collaborative. For the next four years, she pioneered her AdvocacyForward approach teaching and training thousands of nonprofit and philanthropic leaders on how to use their voices for greater impact in the public arena as well as consulting to nonprofit organizations on how to integrate advocacy as a leadership streategy.
ln 2018, Laurel’s desire to go deeper in working with individual leaders led her to add coaching and advising social impact leaders and entrepreneurs interested in changing the world to her practice.
My Process
Laurel digs deep and inspires all her clients, to find their mission and their truth, overcome their fears and advocate for the change they are seeking from a place of clarity, deeper meaning and greater purpose and impact. She does this by diving deep into understanding their unique contribution or source of power, along with any obstacles from the past that are impeding their progress while surfacing their best opportunities to create the change they are seeking. She synthesizes all this information to create a roadmap or plan for each client to achieve their goals with maximum impact. To each engagement, Laurel brings deep professional knowledge about what it takes to create lasting change as well as an intuitive and empathetic approach based on her personal and professional experience navigating transitions.