Mike Lee joined the ACLU of Pennsylvania as executive director in 2024. A born and raised Philadelphian, Mike served for six years in the administration of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, as director of government affairs, supervisor of adult diversion, and chief of staff. Mike founded and served as executive director of Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, a nonprofit legal aid firm that helps Pennsylvanians expunge their criminal records, a program that would later become a model for Pennsylvania's Clean Slate law. In his early years practicing law, he specialized in criminal defense and had a number of clients who had been prosecuted during the Occupy protests. Mike was also a regular legal observer, including during the G20 protests in Pittsburgh in 2009.
Mike is a graduate of George Washington University with a degree in communications and was part of the inaugural class at the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2006, where he co-founded an ACLU chapter. (Philadelphia)