Joe Levin, a co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center with Morris Dees, worked as its legal director from 1971 to 1976. In 1976, Joe Levin went to Washington, D.C., to work in the Carter administration as an assistant to the Attorney General and as Chief Counsel to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. After Reagan was elected, Levin began a private practice which he ran until 1996 when he resumed his work with the SPLC as its CEO.