Chiraag Bains was Director of Legal Strategies at Demos, a think tank that powers the movement for a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy. He was previously a senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program and a Leadership in Government fellow with the Open Society Foundations. He served as a federal prosecutor and then senior leadership official at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from 2010 to 2017.
Prior to joining the DOJ, Chiraag clerked for Judge Karen Nelson Moore on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Nancy Gertner on the federal district court in Boston. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an Articles Editor on the Harvard Law Review; his M.Phil. in Criminology from the University of Cambridge on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship; and his B.A. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale College, where he was a Harry S. Truman Scholar. Chiraag also completed the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in New York City. His writing has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Slate, and he has appeared on RadioLab, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and other programs.
He graduated from Yale College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School