Carl Williams

Carl Williams is a movement lawyer, organizer and scholar-activist dedicated to creating the conditions where people are free from all systems of oppression. Carl has practiced criminal and civil rights law in Massachusetts for over twelve years. He began his legal career as a criminal defense attorney with the Roxbury Defenders Unit of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, and most recently served as a racial justice attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts. A long-time resident of Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Carl is an activist, organizer and public advocate on issues of war, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights, and for Black and Palestinian liberation. He is the member of the National Lawyers Guild and currently serves as co-chair of its Massachusetts Board of Directors. Carl was part of the legal defense for the Occupy Boston movement, providing legal, bail, and court support and training to the thousands of participant-organizers. In 2015, he served on the working group that organized the inaugural Law for Black Lives convening, and was a featured speaker in its RadTalks event. Recently, Carl was a Givelber Distinguished Lecturer on Public Interest Law at Northeastern University School of Law, where he taught on social justice movements and the law. In the fall of 2018, Carl will be a practitioner-in-residence at Cornell Law School teaching a course on the history and theory of movement lawyering. Carl is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and the University of Wisconsin Law School.