Melanie Leslie became dean of the law school on July 1, 2015 and is the Dr. Samuel Belkin Professor of Law. She is the first Cardozo Law graduate and the first woman to hold the position of dean.
Dean Leslie is the driving force behind important social justice initiatives including the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice, funded with a $15 million-dollar philanthropic gift, that represents incarcerated people with unjust sentences; and the Center for Rights and Justice, which supports lawyers engaged in pro bono representation. She has spearheaded a number of important initiatives at the intersection of law, technology, intellectual property, and business, including The FAME Center for fashion, art, media and entertainment law, which prepares students to work in the creative industries through its extensive curricular offerings, and the Cardozo Patent Diversity Project, which seeks to increase the number of women and minority innovators receiving patents.
Dean Leslie established Cardozo’s first Office of Diversity and Inclusion and expanded the Office for Academic Success to ensure that all students can find the support and sense of belonging that enable them to succeed. She created the position of Associate Dean of Equity in Curriculum and Teaching to ensure ongoing review of the law school curriculum and teaching practices with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as faculty training on issues of race, implicit bias and cultural competency.
A Cardozo professor since 1995, Dean Leslie is a leading scholar in trusts & estates, fiduciary obligations and nonprofit governance. Courses taught include Property, Trusts and Estates, Nonprofit Governance, and Evidence. She was given the “Best First-Year Professor” award by three graduating Cardozo classes.
Her scholarly work has been published in the NYU Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Florida Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and Indiana Law Journal, among other publications. She is also the coauthor of a leading casebook, Estates and Trusts, Cases and Materials, as well as Concepts and Insights: Trusts and Estates. She is the co-founder of the Dean's Leadership Academy, an annual conference to develop leadership among prospective law school deans.
Dean Leslie has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at New York University Law School, and a Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. She was a member of the New York State Bar and New York City Bar Joint Committee on the Uniform Trust Code, and is a Legal Fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel (ACTEC), an Executive Committee member of the AALS Section on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and an Executive Committee member of the AALS Deans Section.
Dean Leslie received her B.A. from the University of Oregon with Honors, and her J.D. from Cardozo Law magna cum laude in 1991, where she was Executive Editor of the Cardozo Law Review. Prior to joining the Cardozo Law faculty she clerked for Justice Gary S. Stein of the New Jersey Supreme Court and practiced commercial litigation for several years.
