The Law Dork Nine: Tona Boyd
Boyd talks with Law Dork about the story that started her on her path to the storied racial justice organization started by Thurgood Marshall — and the challenges we face today.
For the second edition of The Law Dork Nine, I reached out to someone whose work I’ve watched closely — whose work we’ve all seen — over the past decade as she settles into her role in the leadership of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund: Tona Boyd.
I’ve known Boyd for nearly two decades now, and nothing she accomplishes would ever surprise me — and she’s already accomplished much that would cap others’ careers.
Boyd is likely known across the country by many more for the work she has done than by name, but she has been in the thick of it in D.C., having worked in the White House Counsel’s Office earlier in the Biden administration on judicial nominations, among other matters. One of the key nominations she worked on in that role: Then-Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s successful nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Before that, you likely saw Boyd — often sitting behind Sen. Cory Booker at high-stakes Judiciary Committee hearings during the Trump administration when she was working for the Democratic senator as his chief counsel. Earlier in her career, Boyd was a lawyer in the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and clerked for Judge Roger Gregory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Now, more than a year into her time as the No. 2 at LDF, if you don’t know Boyd, you should. And, if you do, there’s always more to learn.
Here are Tona Boyd’s responses to The Law Dork Nine.
1. How do you wish to be identified for this?
Tona is great!
2. What is your work?
I am a civil rights lawyer. I currently serve as the Associate Director-Counsel at the Legal Defense Fund.
3. How does it relate to the law? (If this is obvious, feel free to skip it— or have fun with it.)
The Legal Defense Fund is the nation’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. We use the power of law, narrative, research, and people to defend and advance the full dignity and citizenship of Black people in America.
So while the law is one tool in the service of our mission — we leverage an integrated advocacy approach to further racial justice.
4. What job or experience that you’ve had has most shaped your worldview?
I was about 10 years old when LAPD officers brutally beat Rodney King and I watched it play out on video on the news night after night. My family moved from the LA area to Ohio around the time of the LA riots that followed the officers’ initial acquittals. The injustice felt very personal, and I decided then that I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer.
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