Faculty and Administration Profiles

Jerrod L. Williams

About

Jerrod Williams began his legal career as a Research Attorney in the Fourth District of the Illinois Appellate Court. He next worked under Justice Mary W. McDade in the Third District in Peoria for seven years as a law clerk and then as her senior clerk. In June 2011, Williams became an Assistant Attorney General in the General Law Bureau in Springfield. He was later hired by Justice Mathias W. Delort in the First District and moved back to Chicago, where he was born. Soon thereafter, in July 2013, Justice Nathaniel R. Howse, Jr. hired him to be his clerk, where Williams worked until January 2021. Williams now serves as law clerk to Illinois Supreme Court Justice P. Scott Neville. 

Williams also serves as a legal writing instructor and an instructor in a professionalism course at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Williams chairs a working group of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Steering Committee on Racial Inequality focusing on legislative criminal justice reform. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Austin Coming Together, a neighborhood association in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago.

Williams is the Immediate Past-President (2020-21) of the Cook County Bar Association (CCBA), the oldest formal association of African-American attorneys in the nation. In July 2017, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Williams to the Illinois Judicial College Committee on Judicial Branch Staff Education. He serves as co-chair of the Joint Minority Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Planning Committee, and he mentors first-year law students at NIU COL and frequently volunteers to judge the moot court competition at NIU as well as other competitions. NIU College of Law honored Williams with the 2019 NIU College of Law Alumnus of the Year Award.

Degrees

BS, Florida A&M University

JD, Northern Illinois University College of Law

Program Areas

Courses Taught at Loyola:

Legal Writing III

Professionalism (Intensive Field Placement)

Professional & Community Affiliations

Committee Member, Judicial Branch Staff Education Committee, Illinois Judicial College, Illinois Supreme Court.

Chair, Curriculum Workgroup, Judicial Branch Staff Education Committee, Illinois Judicial College, Illinois Supreme Court.

Co-Chair, Joint Minority Bar Continuing Legal Education Conference Committee, Chicago, Illinois.

President, Cook County Bar Association, Chicago, Illinois (until June 2020).

Co-Chair, Austin Quality of Life Plan Economic Development Task Force, Chicago, Illinois.

Board Member, South Austin Neighborhood Association, Chicago, Illinois.