Lawyer instrumental in the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s (DRV) judicial branch during the Indochina War. He completed his secondary education in northern Vietnam and studied law at the Faculté de droit in Hanoi, obtaining his degree in 1935. He was also deeply involved in radical politics. He joined the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League in the late 1920s and was a classmate of Truong Chinh. Le Dinh Chi left Hanoi for Saigon in the 1930s, where he worked as a lawyer in the Saigon Municipal Court (some sources say the Criminal Court). He took part in the Indochinese Congress during the Popular Front period. With the advent of the DRV in 1945, Le Dinh Chi sold some of his possessions in order to buy weapons for troops opposing the return of the French and supported detachment 11 (chi doi 11) in Tay Ninh province. In early 1946, he headed up the Board of Military Justice for war Zone VII (Ban Quan Phap Khu VII). He played a role in persuading reluctant intellectuals, bureaucrats, and professionals in Saigon-Cholon to join or at least support clandestinely the national resistance movement led by the DRV. In early 1946, working with the lawyer Nguyen Thanh Vinh, Le Dinh Chi organized the secret visit to Saigon-Cholon of Nguyen Binh, the head of war Zone VII (Khu VII) and the commander-in-chief of the southern Armed Forces. In 1948–1949, Le Dinh Chinh ran the Bureau of Military Justice for the Nam Bo High Command (Phong Quan Phap Bo Tu Lenh Nam Bo) before becoming the director of the Military Justice Service of the Military High Command of Nam Bo (Nha Quan Phap Thuoc Bo Tu Lenh Nam Bo). He helped develop the DRV’s justice system in the south, producing legal texts on a wide range of socio-political matters. He also oversaw the training of the DRV’s first lawyers in southern Vietnam. In 1949, he perished in a French air raid.