Our People

Lorilei W.

The Resilient Advocates Collective's founder and executive director, lorilei w. (they/them), is a transgender nonbinary Korean-American immigration attorney, artist, and abolitionist with more than 15 years of experience working with migrants in nonprofit and advocacy spaces. They have conducted training sessions and presented on panels on their approaches to legal advocacy since 2013 when they began their career as an attorney for detained unaccompanied migrant children. lorilei used their own personal experiences of migration and violence, and their professional experiences in business and science, to develop a replicable approach to legal practice that is both trauma-informed and strategic. lorilei’s work resulted in numerous proven successes, from innovative approaches to volunteer management in high-volume, rapid response legal projects to community-driven group advocacy and impact litigation efforts. The Resilient Advocates Collective is an evolution of lorilei’s work providing training, coaching, and consulting services to legal services organizations on their proven approaches to advocacy and practice management.

lorilei grew up in various countries - Germany, Mexico, and the Philippines - as the child of a Korean sex worker and white American soldier. lorilei witnessed first hand the impacts of US foreign policy and the military industrial complex on Indigenous peoples around the world, leading them to commit to promoting justice, equity, self-determination, and belonging for all.

lorilei is admitted to the state bars of New York and Texas, the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, and the Southern and Eastern Federal District Courts of New York. They are a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and the University of Maryland. lorilei is also an alum of the Robert H. Smith School of Business's Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams (QUEST) Honors Program, a multidisciplinary program through which they studied systems thinking, project management, organizational design, and marketing. lorilei lives in Houston, Texas, on lands originally tended by a number of Indigenous nations, including the Karankawa, Coahuiltecan, Atakapa-Ishak, and the Sana.

Leora Mosman

Leora Mosman (she/her) joined the Resilient Advocates Collective in September 2023 as a contract production and operations assistant. She has over four years experience providing pro se legal support, direct services, and case management for detained asylum seekers and refugees. She also has experience in facilitation, training, corporate research for divestment campaigns, and community organizing. She is an aspiring artist and abolitionist.

Leora grew up on Tongva land, and now lives on the colonized land of the Wolof, Serer, and Peuhl people in a region from where indigenous Africans were kidnapped and stolen by enslavers - also known as Senegal. Leora acknowledges that her privileges, and the ease with which her passport lets her navigate arbitrary international borders, are due to these intersecting and ongoing genocides against Black and Indigenous people, both in her home "country" and globally.

Whitney Knox Lee

Whitney Knox Lee (she/her) is a black mother to black children, an anti-racism and DEI educator, an attorney, and podcast host. Whitney joined the Resilient Advocates Collective in December 2023 and co-leads network development and consulting opportunities. Whitney has a sincere interest in promoting anti-racism, racial equity, and inclusion in the law, in the workplace and beyond. To this end, Whitney works as a consultant to law firms across the country to teach principles of anti-racism and racial justice advocacy to advocates, and to help foster cultural humility and inclusivity within the workplace and amongst legal professionals. Whitney has spent a majority of her professional life working for non-profit agencies. Most recently Whitney worked as a civil rights attorney to end mass incarceration and to improve access to medical care for incarcerated individuals in Georgia and Alabama. Prior to this, Whitney worked for seven years as a legal services attorney in the areas of landlord/tenant law, disability and public benefits, and family law.

Whitney’s podcast, Impostrix Podcast, is an outlet for Whitney’s passion of bringing race equity in the workplace to fruition. The show aims to empower professionals of color to successfully navigate imposter treatment and racial toxicity in the workplace with the ultimate goal of creating community, unearthing collective power, and preparing to lead.

Whitney occupies unceded land of the Muscogee people, and land through which Muscogee walked, cried, and died on the trail of tears, now known as Atlanta metropolitan area. Whitney acknowledges the privilege this genocide affords her and the communities inhabiting this land.