In order for marginalized groups to have increased access to the judicial system to expand their civil rights, I would make these three recommendations: expand pro bono programs, create additional self-help centers, and encourage attorneys to adopt a sliding-fee scale based on income and ability to pay.
Meet the Candidate
Welcome to the 2025 election season series ‘Political Q&A’ – interviews with candidates throughout Pennsylvania. Since 2013, we’ve published nearly 150 of these interviews. We use an email Q&A format to allow the candidates to speak directly to you, the readers.
Candidates can be anywhere in Pennsylvania running for any level of office. Please note that these are not necessarily endorsements, more of an opportunity for candidates to connect with the LGBTQ community, progressives neighbors, and others with an interest in Pennsylvania. If your candidate would like to participate, contact us pghlesbian at gmail dot com. We welcome candidates at all levels of government across the entire Commonwealth. We publish in the order that they are returned and will accept Q&A’s until Election Day.
Please note that Pennsylvania has over 500 school districts. We’d like to talk with candidates in any one of them. Tell your district’s story statewide.
Important to note that I do not edit the responses, including their framing of LGBTQ identities.
These Q&A’s are lengthy because there is a lot of ground to cover. This year, I created about 20 questions per candidate. This is and should be a deep dive because you deserve as much information as possible.
By participating in this Q&A series, candidates are saying that they
- are an LGBTQIA+ ally, specifically supporting equality and dignity for transgender persons
- identify as pro-choice
We first met the Honorable Alyssa Cowan in 2021 when she first ran for the Court of Common Pleas. Four years later, she was nominated (and approved) to fill a vacancy on that court by the State Senate. Our Q&A was brought up during that approval process in what we deem an attack sort of way but Cowan deftly responded.
Name: Hon. Alyssa B. Cowan
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Office Sought in This Election: Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
How do you describe your identity? Cisgender heterosexual woman
Tell us about your Allegheny County. What is a hidden gem most people might not know about?
I live near Hartwood Acres Park and the numerous trails throughout the park are hidden gems. The park is beautiful in all seasons with snow in the winter, flowering meadows in the spring and summer, and colorful foliage in the fall. I’m often dressed in suits for my job, but I keep walking clothes, shoes, hats, etc. in my car so that I can go for a walk in the park any chance I get. I’ve found that outdoor activity is the best way for me to center myself to either prepare for the day or to clear my thoughts after a long day and I’m thankful for our Allegheny County parks.
Given the ongoing efforts to make voting more difficult in some regions of the country, we’ve seen how fragile our democracy is. In order to maintain our democracy, we need to have informed, engaged voters.
Questions and Answers
What professional accomplishment gives you the most pride?
In all of my cases as an attorney, I take pride in the collaborative work I have undertaken with opposing counsel to achieve positive outcomes that serve the needs of all parties involved. I believe that my dual-degree background and interdisciplinary approach uniquely position me to address the complex challenges that bring families into the courtroom. As to a specific case, one client of mine was a teenage girl who had been sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriends while her mother battled a substance use disorder. As a result of this significant childhood trauma, she experienced multiple home and school placements. Despite her bright, inquisitive nature, her schools would funnel her into disciplinary classrooms because of her past placement history instead of nurturing her potential. As her court-appointed attorney, I advocated for her to be fully assessed and placed in courses according to her academic ability not her foster care history. As a result, she was able to achieve her goal of becoming a college bound student and nurse. My experience representing clients like this teenage girl inspired me to develop a training entitled “Meeting the Educational Needs of Children in Care” focused on developing skills to address the unique challenges faced by foster care children in their school settings. As a legal trainer for the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network, I presented this training across the State to judges, hearing officers, caseworkers, probation officers, behavioral health providers, and foster care families.
You were recently appointed to fill a vacancy on the Court of Common Pleas, but you must still run to retain that seat. Why not just appoint you for a full term?
I am very thankful to have received a judicial appointment from Governor Shapiro to fill a vacancy in the Court of Common Pleas Family Division and am now running to seek election to a full ten-year term. There are pros and cons to judicial elections, but overall, I believe they offer great value to the public. The endorsement and campaigning process encourages candidates to visit nearly every neighborhood in the County, allowing them to connect with community leaders across the region. This fosters the election of candidates who have a deep understanding of the county’s diversity and the unique needs of various neighborhoods. However, I do have some reservations about judicial elections, particularly the high costs involved, which can create a barrier for many attorneys, especially public interest attorneys, from running. Additionally, there are times when the most qualified candidate does not win due to political or other factors. This is where the efforts of the Allegheny County Bar Association Judiciary Committee and their rating process become critical to ensuring a thoughtful and informed judicial selection process.
Please tell me about your familiarity with the LGBTQ community in Allegheny County.
In regard to my community affiliations, my family and I are proud members of East Liberty Presbyterian Church (ELPC). ELPC has a commitment to “work, worship, and pray in ways that transcend boundaries of race, class, ability, culture, age, gender and sexual identity.” It was very important to me and my spouse that we raise our children in a church community where everyone is welcome and given the opportunity to fully participate in all aspects of church life. Our church has a very active LGBTQ Ministry that works to educate the entire congregation on issues impacting the LGBTQ community in our region.
Based on this, what do you understand to be our current top LGBTQ concerns and priorities for the Court of Commons Pleas? How will you respond to those priorities?
The constitutional right to privacy which has been foundational for key LGBTQ rights has been called into question as a result of the Dobbs decision. Although Dobbs specifically addressed abortion, it has raised significant concerns about the future of LGBTQ rights in the United States and in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, legal protections for the LGBTQ community are provided through anti-discrimination ordinances in many municipalities and through the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. I have tried to advance the rights of LGBTQ individuals throughout my career and in my personal life, I am committed to continuing to do so as a Court of Common Pleas Judge or in whatever position I may hold in the future.
What have you personally and professionally done to protect trans kids?
In my former position, representing Allegheny County’s Children, Youth, and Families (CYF) in the Court of Common Pleas, I worked with a number of cases involving LGBTQ youth. Sadly, LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system because they are more likely to run away or be kicked out of their homes when their families are not accepting of their LGBTQ identify. I have a lot of experience in working with LGBTQ youth as a result. These youth tend to face more hardships than other youth in foster care due to their birth families often cutting off all contact entirely with them. One of my former cases involved a trans-gender teen. This teen came into the care of CYF as a result of her adoptive mother not being able to handle the challenges of raising a trans-gender teen. When this child was moved from her adoptive mother’s care into the custody of the county, the teen began to more freely and clearly articulate her identity as a trans-gender youth. I worked to ensure that this teen could access services and resources in accordance with her identity.
Improving court procedures to support the needs of the LGBTQ community is also work that I have engaged in. In my former position, I represented our office in the Quality Improvement Center on Domestic Violence pilot project conducted in the Courts here in Allegheny County. In brief, the project was focused on the Courts implementing an Adult and Child Survivor Centered Approach focused on six main principles, one of which is equity. The equity value is to work towards racial, ethnic, and gender equity in court practice and access to services. I worked on developing a glossary to be used across Allegheny County’s Department of Human Services, the Courts, and DHS-contracted service providers with our County partners. The glossary was developed utilizing gender inclusive and gender-neutral language. It is critically important for judges to recognize the importance of word choice and honoring a person’s identity by using their preferred pronouns throughout judicial proceedings in order to truly provide an equitable courtroom experience to all.
At my recent Pennsylvania Senate confirmation hearing for my judicial appointment, multiple Republican members of the judiciary committee- including the 2022 GOP nominee for Governor- took issue with statements I had made in the past relating to my support of LGBTQ youth, my concern about mass shootings, and my opposition to the January 6th insurrection. Despite their criticisms, I held firm to my beliefs and still received bipartisan support
Tell us about an underappreciated or little known asset in the Court of Common Pleas?
Allegheny County has several specialty Courts including a Mental Health Court (MHC) and I’m not sure how well-known this court process is within the larger community. The MHC was established in 2001 and is designed to divert individuals who commit nonviolent crimes and also have a documented mental health diagnosis to community-based services. Instead of incarcerating individuals for non-violent crimes, MHC tries to keep people in their communities with their housing, benefits, and treatment programs intact along with increased supervision and programming. Many MHC clients have dual diagnoses which means that they have both mental health and substance use diagnoses. They can participate in both mental health and substance use disorder treatment through the MHC. MHC is a collaboration between the Courts, the Department of Human Services, the District Attorney, the Office of the Public Defender, and Adult Probation. MHC works to address the root causes of an individual’s involvement with the criminal justice system and also provides a blueprint for designing other diversionary programs in the future.
Is the Court of Common Pleas a County level or State level of government?
Allegheny County’s Fifth Judicial District Court of Common Pleas is part of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania.
Please summarize how the Court of Common Pleas is funded,
Pennsylvania Courts are primarily funded by state tax revenues.
In about 70% of Pennsylvania, it is legal to discriminate against people based on gender identity and sexual orientation – to fire us, to refuse to rent to us, even to deny to serve us in a business. The few protections we have come from municipal ordinances, court rulings, and executive decisions none of which carry the weight of legislative action by the General Assembly. Name three things your office will do to address the fallout of this legalized bigotry?
The judicial system is available to serve all people. In order for marginalized groups to have increased access to the judicial system to expand their civil rights, I would make these three recommendations: expand pro bono programs, create additional self-help centers, and encourage attorneys to adopt a sliding-fee scale based on income and ability to pay.
Every school kid learns that we have three branches of government – executive, legislative, and judicial. We also have three levels of government – local, state, and federal. Democracy is supposed to rest at the intersections of these branches and levels. Those intersections also include people – citizens, residents, voters, workers, neighbors. It can be overwhelming when the balance of power is heavily tilted in one direction. What three specific actions will you take to address this imbalance from your office should you be elected?
Judges play an important role in maintaining the balance of power among the three branches of government. I believe three actions that judges take to maintain this balance include: 1) protecting individual rights; 2) upholding judicial independence; 3) enforcing separation of powers through judicial review.
Our nation is in turmoil. Still, Court business continues – crimes adjudicated, custody decisions made, disputes and grievances addressed. Our lives move forward, facing life changing personal legal battles in this larger context. How does a judge balance this cognitive dissonance?
I am dedicated to bringing the utmost integrity, work ethic, and empathy to the bench. My judicial philosophy is to provide a fair, unbiased, and accessible courtroom to each and every litigant providing them with the opportunity to be heard on a level-playing field, to leave their hearings with confidence in the judicial system whether it is their preferred outcome or not. Each of us needs to do the hard work of moving our democracy forward in our own individual capacities.
You have a commitment – to treat each person who appears in your courtroom as you would want a member of your family to be treated. Where did that value come from? How does it manifest say in a violent domestic violence case in Family Court?
That value comes from my own personal principles and moral compass. Women’s Center and Shelter offers excellent batterer intervention services and I would be comfortable referring anyone in my family as well as anyone entering my courtroom in need of those services to that program.
You have extensive professional history with adoption. Please list three systemic or procedural changes to court involvement in adoptions that would contribute to a better experience for all parties.
Three changes I would recommend would focus on the extraordinary need to find long-term permanent homes for older children lingering in the foster care system. My recommendations would be to: 1) match potential adoptive families’ strengths with the individualized needs of older children; 2) decrease interjurisdictional bureaucratic barriers to adoption; 3) increase the availability of long-term supportive services for adoptive families.
There’s a clear need to actively create space for women, especially Black women and other women of color, in elected office AND on campaign and legislative staffs. These are issues of representation and realities. Tell us about your campaign team.
We’re a small team. I have a campaign manager, chair, treasurer, and fundraising chair. That being said, we have LGBTQ representation and naturalized citizen representation within our small group. I also have a diverse group of student interns and volunteers.
Why did you agree to complete this Q&A?
Given the ongoing efforts to make voting more difficult in some regions of the country, we’ve seen how fragile our democracy is. In order to maintain our democracy, we need to have informed, engaged voters. This Q&A with candidates serves the public’s need for access to the candidates and information about the candidates. I appreciate the work of the Pgh Lesbian Correspondents in supporting our democracy and creating this space for educating the public about this upcoming primary election on May 20th and wanted to do my part to participate in that process as well.
One of my former cases involved a trans-gender teen. This teen came into the care of CYF as a result of her adoptive mother not being able to handle the challenges of raising a trans-gender teen. When this child was moved from her adoptive mother’s care into the custody of the county, the teen began to more freely and clearly articulate her identity as a trans-gender youth. I worked to ensure that this teen could access services and resources in accordance with her identity.
Endorsements, Socials, and Summary
Tell us about your endorsements.
As of the date of submission of my questionnaire, I’ve been endorsed by Young Democrats of Allegheny County; Pitt College Dems; U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio; Senator Jay Costa; Senator Lindsey Williams; Senator Nick Pisciottano; Rep. Arvind Venkat; Rep. Emily Kinkead; Rep.
Brandon Markosek; Rep. Jessica Benham; Rep. Mandy Steele; Rep. Dan Frankel; Rep. John Inglis; Councilperson Strassburger; Councilperson Bobby Wilson; Councilperson Barb Warwick.
Please list your social media accounts and your campaign donation links.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I am running for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in order to ensure that every family and child interacting with the court system in Allegheny County has access to fair, equitable, effective, and timely justice. Children deserve court interventions focused on ensuring their safety and maintaining their well-being. Over the course of my career, I have developed the skill set needed to make a valuable contribution and be effective in the role of Judge. As a professional with both a law degree and a master’s degree in social work, I am able to navigate the complex legal and emotional aspects of working in the Family Division.
I have local, state, national, and international experience. I have worked as both Guardian ad Litem and Assistant County Solicitor in child welfare cases on the local level. I have provided trainings on a variety of child welfare laws across the state of Pennsylvania as a legal trainer for the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network. In my work at both the ABA Center on
Children and the Law and the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice, and Research at Penn, I worked on federal foster care legislation and research projects at the national level. Internationally, I have presented twice at the International Society of Family Law World Conferences- 2000 in Brisbane Australia and 2017 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I have been rated Highly Recommended by the Allegheny County Bar Association.
Thank you, Alyssa.
Other Q&A’s
Other Q&A’s in this election cycle series. You can read previous cycle Q&A’s here. If your candidate would like to participate, please contact us pghlesbian at gmail dot com.
The 2025 Political Q&A Series: Lauren Leiggi, Candidate for Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas
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