Darshan-Leitner was born in Petah Tikva, Israel. Her family emigrated to Israel from a small village outside of Shiraz in Iran at around the time of the founding of the State.In the 1990s, Darshan-Leitner helped litigate a case on behalf of victims of the Achille Lauro hijacking of 1985. During work on this case, she appeared before the Israeli Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent one of the hijackers, Muhammed Abbas, from being allowed to travel to Israel.
