Leslie Briggs

Leslie Briggs is the Reporters Committee's staff attorney in Oklahoma, leading the organization's legal work in the state as part of the Local Legal Initiative.

Leslie previously served as the legal director of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit that fights for justice and opportunity for all Oklahomans. At Oklahoma Appleseed, she developed legal strategies challenging the deprivation of constitutional rights for LGBTQ+ public school students, curbing breaches to the separation of church and state by the executive branch, freeing unfairly incarcerated survivors of domestic violence, and reshaping the criminal competency restoration system in the state of Oklahoma. She also worked on legislation reforming the criminal justice system, including the successful passage of SB1835, the Oklahoma Survivors' Act, and co-hosted the Anthem award-winning podcast, Panic Button.

Leslie is a homegrown Tulsan, receiving undergraduate degrees in Spanish and history as well as a graduate degree in international studies from Oklahoma State University. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer to Ethiopia and obtained a graduate degree in political science from the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Puebla in Mexico.

Leslie attended the University of Tulsa College of Law, serving as president of the Public Interest Board. Since being licensed as an attorney, she's worked in civil rights litigation as an associate at Smolen and Roytman, and as a supervising attorney at the YWCA-Tulsa, where she helped lead a team of legal advocates and worked to resettle Afghan evacuees in the Tulsa area. She lives in Tulsa with her wife and sons.

Admitted to practice in Oklahoma