Leslie Rachael Lightholder

We help thousands of intended parents from all over the world fulfill their dream of starting a family.  Attorney Leslie Lightholder has specialized in reproductive law since 2006, and is licensed to practice in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. She has extensive experience drafting and negotiating gestational carrier agreements, representing both intended parents and carriers. Licensed in two jurisdictions, Leslie routinely obtains Pre-Birth Orders for clients and appears in both the Massachusetts Probate & Family Court, and also in the Family Division of the Connecticut Superior Courts.  Leslie’s practice often involves complicated international surrogacy arrangements during which she collaborates with attorneys in her clients’ home countries to assist in establishing their legal rights as parents both in the U.S. and abroad.  She also has many years of experience advising intended parents on insurance coverage for a surrogate pregnancy.  Leslie’s experience, combined with her contacts on both the professional and judicial side of reproductive law gives her clients the best possible advantage.  Her attention to detail and deep understanding and appreciation of the human elements involved are what separate Leslie from her peers.

Attorney Lightholder graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1998, and received her Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Western New England University School of Law in 2001.  After being admitted to both the Massachusetts and Connecticut bar, Leslie began her legal career serving as a Judicial Law Clerk, providing legal research and draft decisions to the judges then presiding in the Massachusetts Juvenile and Probate and Family Courts.  She also served for a year as an Assistant Clerk running the Magistrate Court Sessions in the Windham Judicial District of the Connecticut Superior Court.  Leslie’s time spent in these courts helps to give her practice a practical and realistic perspective on the law.  Leslie joined the firm in 2006, and since then has exclusively practiced reproductive law, with a particular focus on gestational carrier agreements and parentage orders.  In 2012, Leslie was named a Partner in the firm.  Most recently, she was invited to author a chapter on surrogacy and gestational carrier arrangements in the 2017 edition of the MCLE (Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education) book: Adoption and Reproductive Technology Law in Massachusetts, which is currently pending publication.  

Outside of the office, Leslie and her husband happily have their hands full with their their three children, which includes a set of boy/girl twins, and 2 cats. When not rushing the kids to a dance rehearsal, gymnastics, taekwondo, or to the soccer field, Leslie enjoys baking, watching movies, binge watching TV drama series, and starting knitting projects.