The Rev. Edward Frederick Sorin, C.S.C., Award - 2012: The Honorable Ann Claire Williams ’75 J.D.

2012: The Honorable Ann Claire Williams ’75 J.D.

For her years of trailblazing service to the judiciary, Judge Ann Claire Williams ’75 J.D. was awarded the 2012 Sorin Award. 

In 1999, Ann Claire Williams was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She is the first judge of color appointed to the Seventh Circuit and the third woman of color to serve on any United States Court of Appeals. Before that appointment, Williams served on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. At 35, she was the youngest woman of color ever appointed to the federal bench.

Judge Williams has a long history of service to the judiciary. She was the first woman and first 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, and served on the Supreme Court Fellows Program Commission for six years. Judge Williams also has a longstanding commitment to education and training, both in the United States and abroad. She has traveled to Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, and Uganda to train judges and lawyers on topics such as domestic and gender violence, judicial ethics, case management, alternative dispute resolution, and trial advocacy, and has served as a member of international training delegations teaching trial and appellate advocacy at the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. 

Judge Williams has committed herself to public interest work and expanding the pipeline for minorities and women. In 1977, 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. In 1987, she helped found the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Chicago, and in 1991, an order she entered in In Re Folding Carton (N.D. Ill. 1991) directed $2.3 million in cy pres funds to create a public interest post-graduate legal fellowship program administered by Equal Justice Works. In 1992, Judge Williams co-founded the Just The Beginning Foundation, an organization that has evolved into a pipeline organization to encourage students of color and other under-represented groups to pursue legal careers.