Nekima Levy-Pounds

Nekima Levy-Pounds is an award-winning professor of law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and the founding Director of the Community Justice Project, a civil rights legal clinic. Professor Levy-Pounds  is also a civil rights attorney, legal scholar, media personality, blogger, and nationally recognized expert on issues at the intersections of race, public policy, economic justice, public education, juvenile justice, and the criminal justice system. In 2015, she was named one of 40 Under 40 by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. In 2014, she was named a Minnesota Attorney of the Year by Minnesota Lawyer and recognized as one of 50 under 50 Most Influential Law Professors of Color in the Country by Lawyers of Color magazine. She currently serves as the president of the Minneapolis NAACP and has served as an advisor to Black Lives Matter Minneapolis. Her primary work as a legal scholar focuses on the impacts of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs on poor communities of color.