Ellen L. Leggett, Ed.D.
Founder And President
Harvard University Ed.D. Human Development
Mount Holyoke College A.B. Psychology
Dr. Leggett's clients have included individuals, companies, and organizations from most major industries, including accounting, aerospace, automobile, banking, construction, education, entertainment, health care, insurance, law, media, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, technology, real estate, and retail, as well as non-profit organizations and government agencies. She has assisted clients in all major areas of litigation, including the Alien Torts Act, antitrust, contracts, defamation, environmental, employment, intellectual property, lender liability, product liability, securities fraud, theft of trade secrets, wrongful death, professional negligence (accounting, legal, actuarial) and white collar crime. She has served as a court-appointed witness psychologist in the Ninth Circuit for a criminal drug and RICO case that was won at trial for the defendant. Also, after SCOTUS reversed a Louisiana non-unanimous murder conviction, she provided pro bono consulting resulting in a unanimous not guilty verdict in the retrial.
She has published and spoken widely on jury psychology and has been interviewed on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN national newscasts. Her articles have appeared in Antitrust Report, Computer Lawyer, International Legal Strategy, Product Liability Law and Claims, California Litigation, Medical Malpractice Law and Strategy, and Corporate Legal Times. She was on the Editorial Board of the Antitrust Report. She was a commentator for the OJ Simpson criminal trial and recently provided commentary about crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's trial for Michael Lewis's Against the Rules podcast.
Dr. Leggett has also established a significant career as a university professor, researcher, and administrator at USC, Cornell University, Scripps College, and the University of California, Riverside. Her academic published works are in the areas of motivation and growth mindset, social cognition, and the differences between lay and expert reasoning. In July 2022, she retired from her role as Professor of the Practice of Psychology at the University of Southern California and Director of the Master of Science in Applied Psychology program there, making a significant contribution to higher education by launching an innovative graduate program. Focusing on organizational and consumer psychology, the program prepares students to use the research tools of psychology to address global business challenges.
Dr. Leggett earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology and education at Harvard University and her A.B. degree magna cum laude in psychology at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the American Society of Trial Consultants, and the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association.