Meg Sanger

Meg is a litigation paralegal, legal support professional, and prison reform advocate whose work is shaped by both professional experience and lived experience. With approximately six years in the legal field, she contracts with attorneys and clients to provide support in areas including criminal law and family law, while also dedicating much of her time to advocacy for incarcerated individuals, returning citizens, and families impacted by the justice system.

A previously incarcerated woman herself, Meg served 38 months in prison, an experience that profoundly changed the direction of her life and career. Before that chapter, she describes herself as someone who had not fully understood the depth of the challenges facing incarcerated people. Her time inside opened her eyes to a population that is often underrepresented, underserved, and left without the tools, support, or information needed to move forward. That realization became the foundation for her advocacy.

While incarcerated, Meg began using her prior paralegal knowledge to help other women understand legal paperwork, court notices, custody-related documents, and other critical filings they often received with little explanation or support. She saw firsthand how confusing legal language, limited access to resources, and lack of education could leave women feeling powerless, particularly when their children, families, sentences, or futures were involved. What began as helping women around her soon evolved into a larger commitment to legal advocacy and prison reform.

Today, Meg focuses heavily on issues affecting incarcerated women, especially in Michigan. She has been actively raising awareness around what she believes are serious failures in prison healthcare, institutional culture, transparency, and accountability. In response to recent deaths and healthcare concerns at Michigan’s only women’s prison, she has worked to review public records, examine government reports, communicate with legislators, connect with advocacy organizations, contact ombuds offices, and help families locate or check on incarcerated loved ones.

Her work is deeply grassroots. She collaborates with organizations, shares information with the public, and uses social media to bring attention to issues that may otherwise remain buried in reports, statistics, or institutional language. For Meg, advocacy is not only about what is written in official documents, but also about what is left unsaid. She believes that by examining the full picture and sharing information clearly, communities can better understand where systems are failing and what must change.

Before entering the legal and advocacy space, Meg worked in sales, fitness, gym membership sales, fitness instruction, and service roles while raising her children. She has always had an interest in civic and political engagement, but her advocacy path became personal after incarceration. In her words, sometimes the work “picks you.”

Meg has also gained meaningful legal experience through the opportunity to work with Ronald J. Clark, a CJA attorney in the Seventh Circuit. Through that experience, she provided legal support and sat second chair on major federal criminal trials in Chicago, giving her a deeper understanding of legal procedure, courtroom strategy, and the criminal justice system. She credits that opportunity with giving her a broader perspective on how the system operates and where it often fails the people moving through it.

She has also worked with Citizen for Prison Reform, a Michigan-based grassroots and family-led organization focused on rehabilitative justice, transparency, and civil rights for incarcerated individuals and their families. Through that work, she testified before legislators and continued building her voice as an advocate for reform.

Education remains an important part of Meg’s journey. She studied political science and returned to college while incarcerated through Jackson. After pausing her education to care for her father during the final year and a half of his life, she is now considering continuing her studies with a focus on public health. Her advocacy has led her to view mass incarceration not only as a legal or civil rights issue, but also as a public health crisis. She is exploring educational opportunities through in-state institutions such as Grand Valley and West Michigan, while also considering options connected to the Second Chance Pell Grant.

Throughout her journey, Meg has been shaped by mentors and examples of service. She credits Ronald J. Clark as an important professional mentor who gave her a meaningful opportunity in the legal field. She also points to her mother, who spent much of her life in the nonprofit sector and served as an executive director for various organizations, including work connected to Goodwill Industries. Through her mother, Meg learned the value of nonprofit leadership, community relationships, legislative engagement, and building networks that can create real impact.

Although she does not currently mentor in a formal capacity, Meg has long supported others through encouragement, practical help, and guidance. While incarcerated, she helped women navigate legal questions and paperwork. Today, she continues to support returning citizens and families affected by incarceration whenever she can. She is open to mentoring more formally in the future, but for now, her focus is on raising awareness and pushing for accountability within the Michigan Department of Corrections and the broader prison system.

One of the biggest challenges she sees in advocacy is fragmentation. While many organizations are doing meaningful work, she believes there is a need for greater collaboration, especially statewide. Rather than separate groups working in isolated pockets, she hopes to see more unified efforts that avoid reinventing the wheel and instead build collective momentum. In the legal field, she also recognizes the challenge of balancing access to affordable legal support with the need to fairly compensate and value legal professionals.

Despite the challenges, Meg sees opportunity. She believes there is growing momentum for civil rights work related to prison conditions, particularly in Michigan. With recent major verdicts involving formerly incarcerated individuals, she sees a chance to apply legal pressure, raise public awareness, and demand accountability from correctional systems.

When asked what she attributes her progress to, Meg points to persistence, a willingness to share her lived experience, and a grassroots commitment to doing the work. She does not frame her journey as simple success, but rather as a series of daily challenges that require resilience, honesty, and determination.

Her advice to young women entering advocacy, legal support, or reform work is simple: the road may be uphill, but you do not have to stand on every hill. Stay focused, keep moving forward, do not give up, and remember that change can happen.

Looking ahead, Meg is in the early stages of developing her own organization focused on prisoner rights, legal support, civil rights, and reentry resources. She envisions an organization built with equal parts previously incarcerated individuals and professionals, working together through a team-based approach and a culture of kindness. Whether structured as a nonprofit or for-profit, her goal is to create something that can support incarcerated individuals, returning citizens, and their families while also engaging in the broader work of reform, advocacy, and possibly lobbying.

For Meg, the mission begins in Michigan, particularly with the state’s only women’s prison. She understands that the system cannot be changed overnight, but she believes meaningful reform begins one step at a time. Her ultimate goal is to help build a more humane, transparent, and accountable system — one that protects civil rights, provides real support, and recognizes the dignity and potential of every person impacted by incarceration.