Judge Williams did not give up. She obtained her bache- lor's degree from Wayne State University in 1949, a master's deg
Judicial Profile by Maria Vathis and Jane Kwak
Teaching Inside and Outside the Courtroom: Hon. Ann Claire Williams, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
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efore she entered the legal profession, Hon. Ann Claire Williams was a thirdgrade and music teacher in the inner city public schools of Detroit. It is her passion to teach and lead that has guided her success as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, U.S. District Judge, and an assistant U.S. attorney. “Teachers counsel; lawyers counsel. Teachers have to present information in a persuasive, direct way; lawyers have to present information in a persuasive, direct way,” she explains during an interview for the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Judge Williams grew up in a home that nurtured academic achievement and a drive to achieve professional ambitions. Although both of her parents were college graduates, neither could obtain jobs in their professional fields. Judge Williams’ mother worked at a training school for delinquent children because African-Americans were unable to get full-time positions in Detroit’s public schools at that time. Her father was a bus driver despite earning a degree in Psychology and Political Science. “To me, my message is, don’t give up. You can find a way.” Judge Williams did not give up. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University in 1949, a master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling from the University of Michigan (while teaching full-time) in 1972 and her juris doctorate from Notre Dame Law School in 1975. Judge Williams became the first African-American female judge appointed to the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois with President Ronald Reagan’s nomination in 1985. It was her scrupulous adherence to fairness and justice that caught the attention of Judge Joseph Sam Perry, who sparked her nomination. During her fifth year as a U.S. Attorney, Judge Williams had a case before Judge Perry, who had denied defense counsel’s request to make a record on a particular issue. Judge Williams made the clerk bring Judge Perry back from chambers and allow defense counsel to make a record. This act of
Maria Vathis is of counsel at Bryan Cave LLP in Chicago. She is a member of the board of directors of the Federal Bar Association, the Seventh Circuit vice president of the Federal Bar Association and a past president of the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Jane Kwak is an associate at Bryan Cave LLP in Chicago.
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fair-mindedness compelled Judge Perry to write to the U.S. Attorney and recommend Judge Williams for a nomination to the bench. Judge Williams was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1999 with President Bill Clinton’s nomination. She became the first judge of color appointed to that court and the third African-American woman to serve on any U.S. Court of Appeals. Judge Williams’ long history of service to the judiciary is not only limited to her time on the bench. She was the first woman and judge of color appointed Chair of the Court Administration and Case Management Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, was the first judge of color to serve as president of the Federal Judges Association, served on the Supreme Court Fellows Program Commission and now serves on the Judicial Branch Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference. Judge Williams has indicated that “being limited to the record that is before us” is the greatest challenge in her day-to-day job on the Seventh Circuit. “We don’t operate with a clean slate.” When asked what difference she made upon being appointed to the federal bench, Judge Williams stated, “as the judge especially in the U.S. District Court, you make all those decisions yourself. You are the person that people see. So if you are fair, and you can represent the system the way it should be represented, people have a very positive impression of our justice system.” Despite her immense successes and demanding schedule, Judge Williams makes it a priority to take time to give back to the community and continue teaching as well. In 1977, Judge Williams co-founded Minority Legal Education Resources, Inc. (MLER) along with Professor Ronald Kennedy of Northwestern University Law School, in response to the problem of low bar passage rates among minorities. MLER offers a supplemental Illinois bar review course for minority and other law graduates. The program has helped over 4,000 lawyers pass the Illinois bar at a rate that equals or exceeds the annual passage rate, and is now a model curriculum for similar initiatives in other states. Judge Williams continues to lecture twice a year at each MLER session. In 1987, she helped found the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Chicago. She also created the Equal Justice Works Fellowship Program in 1991, which has placed more than 1,000 lawyers in underserved communities. From 1990 to 1997, Judge Williams taught case management skills to each new class of federal district court judges at the Federal Judicial Center. She continues to teach trial advocacy with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) and was appointed to the NITA Board of Directors in 1996. She has taught trial advocacy courses at Harvard, Northwestern and other Chicago area law schools. In 1992, she founded Just the Beginning – A Pipeline Organization (JTB-APO), a group dedicated to offering pipeline programs directly aimed at inspiring young students of color and from under-represented groups, as well as increasing diversity in the legal profession and the judiciary. JTB-APO offers programming in schools that
target under-served and minority high school and college students, law student scholarships and externships, and holds biennial conferences that bring together legal leaders of local communities. The idea for JTB-APO initially started during a retirement dinner in honor of Judge James Parsons, the first black U.S. district court judge. It was also at this dinner, when the singer booked to sing the National Anthem unexpectedly failed to show up for the event, that Judge Williams took it upon herself to remedy the situation. She stepped up to the microphone and sang the Star Spangled Banner a cappella “in the most beautiful voice,” says Patricia Brown Holmes, a former colleague of Judge Williams from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “Everyone was awestruck. No one knew she could sing.” It is an understatement to say that Judge Williams, a former music major, is a woman of many talents. Judge Williams has been the recipient of numerous awards, including being named by the Newsweek Daily Beast as one of the 150 Fearless Women in the World in 2012, the American Judicature Society’s Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award in 2009, and the American Bar Association Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award in 2008. In addition to her role as Advisory Council of JTB-APO, she serves on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation of New York, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, Equal Justice Works, and the University of Notre Dame. Judge Williams is a role model and mentor for countless judges and attorneys, including seasoned veterans. “If you took those in the [Chicago] legal community who have been immensely successful and asked them who they look up to, it would be Judge Ann Claire Williams,” said Donald H. Hubert of Donald Hubert & Associates, a past president of The Chicago Bar Association. “I suspect that Ann Williams has served as a mentor for, and has assisted single-handedly more lawyers in this town than most people will in a lifetime,” said Susan Bogart, a sole practitioner who worked with Judge Williams in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “She has a tremendous level of energy and expends a lot of it in reaching out to other people and helping other people and mentoring young lawyers. I am one of many, many people who she has one time or another provided guidance, or assistance or mentoring.” Judge Williams was designated as a speaker for the Federal Bar Association’s Second Annual Women in the Law Conference on June 5, 2015 in Washington, D.C. The interactive conversation covering a wide range of topics, including work-life balance, the importance of giving back to the community, and striving for success and greater equality in the legal profession. Her comments were empowering and thought-provoking, and she became a role model for all those in attendance. But her teaching and mentoring does not stop within the borders of the United States. Since 2001 she has traveled and continues to travel to Kenya, Indonesia, Liberia, Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda to lead training programs for
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are pending as of this writing. To date, not one non-Indian defendant has filed a petition in federal court claiming his or her rights have been violated. None has expressed an interest in challenging the constitutionality of VAWA 2013. None has expressed a desire to have his or her case prosecuted in federal court. It appears more victims are coming forward and reporting the abuse. Hopefully, with implementation of VAWA 2013, those victims not only feel safer but are safer. Those who opposed VAWA 2013 on the claim that non-Indian domestic violence against Indian women is a rarity in Indian country have been proven wrong. Those who claimed non-Indians wouldn’t be afforded due process in tribal court have been proven wrong. Those who claimed a non-Indian wouldn’t be treated fairly by a tribal jury have been proven wrong. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have prosecuted cases in tribal, state, and federal courts. Non-Indian domestic violence has long been a reality but rarely was reported because the perpetrators usually walked free. Criminal defendants in tribal courts, as compared with state and federal courts, are often treated less harshly, with more respect, and with more opportunity to tell their side of things than in other courts. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a juror would skirt his or her duties and convict someone of a crime simply because the juror is a member of a tribal nation sitting in judgment of someone who is not. Let’s hope this limited Oliphant fix is a sign of things to come. Indian country communities will be safer if tribal nations have the power to prosecute any crime that occurs within their community. They are the local government. They have the greatest interest in ensuring the protection of their residents. When they have the resources and power to do so, they are also the most capable of ensuring that protection.
Endnotes See M. Brent Leonhard, Returning Washington P.L. 280 Jurisdiction to Its Original Consent-Based Grounds, 47 Gonz. L. Rev. 663 (2012). 2 Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Respondents at 5-17, Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978) (No. 76-5729). 3 Oliphant at 210. 4 Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, 2003, at 33 tbl.2.3 (2005). 5 Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, 2004, at 33 tbl.2.3 (2006). 6 U.S. Department of Justice Indian Country Investigations and Prosecutions 2013, available at www.justice.gov/tribal/triballaw-and-order-act. 7 See Amnesty International, Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA (2007). 8 See Steven W. Perry, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, NCJ 203097, American Indians and Crime: A BJS Statistical Profile, 1992-2002 (2004). 9 See Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women (2000). 10 Id. at Exhibit 7. 11 See American Indians and Crime at 9. 12 25 U.S.C. § 1302(d),(e). 13 Section 908(b)(2) of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, Pub. L. No. 113-4 (March 7, 2013). 1
M. Brent Leonhard is an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. He helped the CTUIR become the first jurisdiction to implement felony sentencing under the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and one of the first three tribes to exercise non-Indian criminal jurisdiction under VAWA 2013.
JUDICIAL PROFILE: WILLIAMS continued from page 21 judges and lawyers on topics such as case management, judicial ethics, domestic and gender-based violence, opinion writing, alternative dispute resolution, and trial advocacy. She has led these delegations in partnership with the judiciaries and prosecutors of each country, the U.S. Department of State, and Lawyers Without Borders. She has served as a member of international training delegations teaching trial and appellate advocacy at Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. “There aren’t enough hours in the day. I’m involved in too many things. If the good Lord could give me an extra four hours in the day, that would be great,” she says while in South Bend, Indiana for a University of Notre Dame trustees meeting. Lisa Scruggs, a partner at Duane Morris LLP and former clerk for Judge Williams, recalls conversations about not having enough hours in the day: “We have joked about that. The difference is she would work an extra four
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hours, and I would sleep.” “[Her] personality is the most impressive thing about her,” said Roland Chamblee, an state judge in South Bend, Indiana, and friend from law school. “She can handle dealing with kings, popes, presidents, the senators, the court of appeals judges, the butler, the guy who opens the door, and she is the same with everybody.” It is her down-to-earth personality that makes Judge Williams such a remarkable judge and role model. In a sense, she never left her position as a teacher. She shares her wisdom with those around her and tries to harness the next generation of attorneys and judges around the world. On last words of advice to young attorneys, Judge Williams states, “I think it’s important to maintain your identity and who you are. There’s room in the law for personality—assuming now that you’re excellent and you get your job done. That’s always the first thing.”
