Leo Allen spent time at sea, including sailing the Atlantic on the square-rigger USCGC EAGLE.  Upon graduating from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Ensign Allen made 2 Arctic missions to Greenland on the ice breaker USCGC WESTWIND.  The vessel was ported in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and he lived in the West  Village when in port.  Leo then served in the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center where he directed the rescue of New England fishermen, including those from New Bedford.

After graduating from Law school, he continued his relationship with marine resources while working with Ralph Nader in Washington, D.C. on issues relative to national water pollution control.

Leo then held a state position protecting Massachusetts marine resources, after which he served as an assistant district attorney in Bristol County.  In 1981, he became a founding partner of the New Bedford law firm Hamel, Waxler, Allen & Collins.

In 1994, he left the practice of law and established an education foundation with his wife Jocelyn, a former New Bedford teacher and native.  This foundation serviced schools in Massachusetts and New Mexico for 17 years.

Leo began painting several years ago and in 2007, he opened his first gallery in Rockport, MA.  The subject matter of his modern art embodies the spiritual and existential hold that the sea has always had on him.  The paintings, such as those in his solo show, "Tides of Life", are a means by which Leo expresses his relationship to the sea, city, and modernity.

Allen's works have been shown in Cambridge, Marblehead, Gloucester, Rockport,  New Bedford, Fall River, Provincetown, and Boston.