Feature Story: Judge Ann Claire Williams Receives Margaret Brent Award
NDLS Alum Honored by American Bar Association
Judge Ann Claire Williams Receives Margaret Brent Award
The American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession honored Notre Dame Law School alum Judge Ann Claire Williams with the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. The award was presented at the 18th annual Margaret Brent awards luncheon on Sunday, August 10, 2008 in conjunction with the ABA’s annual meeting. Margaret Brent was the first woman lawyer in America (17th century).
Williams graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1975. After graduation, she clerked for Judge Robert A. Sprecher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She was an assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago from 1976 to 1985 and ultimately became chief of the organized Drug Enforcement Task Force, responsible for organizing federal investigation and prosecution activities for a five-state region. She was the first African-American woman supervisor of a criminal division.
President Ronald Reagan appointed Williams as a United States District Judge in the Northern District of Illinois in 1985. In 1999, President Bill Clinton appointed Williams to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, making her the first African-American appointed to that court.
Judge Williams has committed herself to public service and expanding the pipeline for minorities and women. She co-founded Minority Legal Education Resources, which has helped over 4,000 lawyers pass the Illinois bar at a rate that equals or exceeds the annual passage rate; she helped found the Black Women Lawyers Association of Chicago, which supports African-American women in the legal profession; and she cofounded the Just the Beginning Foundation, a pipeline organization to encourage students of color and other underrepresented groups to pursue legal careers.
Williams has taught with the National Institute for Trial Advocacy for more than 20 years. She also judges moot court competitions at law schools across the country, and has served as an adjunct professor and instructor in many programs for federal judges, practicing attorneys, and law students.
Judge Williams has led or participated in numerous judicial delegations to foreign countries. In 2002 and 2003, she led delegations to Ghana to train the Ghanaian judiciary. She has taught trial and appellate advocacy at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 2006, Judge Williams became the first non-Kenyan judge to attend and address the Kenyan Judicial Colloquium. She has returned to the Colloquium each summer and has spearheaded the Kenyan Women’s Trial Advocacy Program, which focuses on domestic violence. In 2007, Williams led a delegation in Liberia for Lawyers Without Borders to teach trial advocacy skills to Liberian magistrate judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Among her many awards, Judge Williams became the first African-American woman to receive Chicago Lawyer’s Person of the Year award, and both Crain’s magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times named her in 2004 as one of Chicago’s 100 Most Influential and Powerful Women.
Judge Williams was one of six 2008 Margaret Brent Award Nominees.
