Leslie J. Winner is an attorney with a career of public service in North Carolina.
During Winner’s three terms in the North Carolina Senate, she served as Majority Whip, Education Committee co-chair, Education Appropriations co-chair, and Judiciary Committee vice-chair. She has also served as Executive Director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, as Vice President and General Counsel of the University of North Carolina, and General Counsel of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.
Winner worked for 16 years as a public interest trial lawyer, serving as lead trial attorney on civil rights cases, including Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986), which set the standard for proving a violation of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended.
Winner is the co-founder of the NC Leadership Forum, an effort to increase constructive engagement across partisan and ideological divides. She has engaged in other civic leadership roles to promote equity and reduce poverty, and to promote public education.
She has received, among other awards, the NC Justice Center’s “Lifetime Champion of Justice” award, the Elon University School of Law’s “Leadership in the Law” award, and NC Foundation for Public School Children’s “Champion of Children” award, and she has been inducted into North Carolina’s Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
Winner received an A.B. from Brown University and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.
