Taonga Leslie

Education: JD from Yale Law School; BA in Sociology from Harvard University

Recent projects include: Freedom Reads, Tisch College of Civic Life, Maine Community Foundation

Personal interests include: guitar, poetry, screenwriting, novels, electronic music and foreign languages

Taonga Leslie is an attorney and strategy consultant with an emphasis on racial justice, civil rights and internal investigations. His legal and consulting experiences have spanned a diverse portfolio of clients, including Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, asylum seekers, survivors of domestic violence, and police accountability groups.

As Director of Policy and Program for Racial Justice at the American Constitution Society, Taonga has supported efforts to advance racial justice across the progressive legal ecosystem and published scholarship in the Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy. Prior to this role, Taonga gained experience as an Associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Taonga’s early career included roles at Impact Justice, where he supported efforts to mitigate youth involvement in the juvenile justice system, and internships with the Equal Justice Initiative and the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Taonga holds a JD from Yale Law School and a BA in Sociology from Harvard University. He is based in Brooklyn, New York where he enjoys poetry and rock climbing in his free time

Taonga’s recent consulting projects include engagements with Freedom Reads, Tisch College of Civic Life, and the Maine Community Foundation.