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
B
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.
20 • THE FEDERAL LAWYER • October/November 2015
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
Judicial Profile continued on page 56
October/November 2015 • THE FEDERAL LAWYER • 21
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
56 • THE FEDERAL LAWYER • October/November 2015
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.” 