He joined New York Law School's faculty in 1982 and has taught courses on labor relations law, contracts, torts, employment law, employment discrimination law, professional responsibility, and sexuality law. Professor Leonard is affiliated with the School's Impact Center for Public Interest Law and has advised the School's LGBT student group. He also frequently serves as faculty advisor to the School's Robert F. Wagner Sr. National Labor and Employment Law Moot Court Competition, the nation's largest student-run moot court competition and the premier student competition focused on labor and employment law.
In 1978, Professor Leonard founded the organization now known as the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York (LeGaL). In 1980, he created what would become LGBT Law Notes, the only nationally circulated newsletter on LGBT and HIV legal developments, including litigation, legislation, and notice of scholarly publications.
Professor Leonard has served on the board of directors of many of the city's most respected organizations, including the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (New York's LGBT synagogue), the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at City University of New York's Graduate Center, and The Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services.
He was also a member of the New York City Bar Association's committees on Sex and Law (which he chaired for several years), Labor and Employment Law, and AIDS and the Law. He was founding co-chair of the Association's Special Committee on Lesbians and Gay Men in the Profession, which eventually became a standing committee. That committee now annually honors one or more lawyers for contributions to LGBT law with an award named after Professor Leonard, who was its first recipient.
In addition, Professor Leonard was a founding member of the National LGBT Bar Association, which presented him with the 2005 Dan Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award for service to the cause of LGBT legal rights.
Professor Leonard has written numerous articles and book chapters on employment law, AIDS law, and lesbian and gay law, and is co-author of the first law school textbook on AIDS law. He is co-author, with Professor Patricia Cain, of Sexuality Law, a law school textbook published by Carolina Academic Press in 2006, second edition published in 2009, third edition in process. He is also the author of Sexuality and the Law: An Encyclopedia of Major Legal Cases, published in 1993 by Garland Publishing. He is frequently quoted in national media outlets and is a contributing writer for Gay City News.
Professor Leonard graduated from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1974 and Harvard Law School in 1977.
