Distinguished
Professor of Law.
Professor Williams earned his B.A. cum
laude in 1967 at Florida State University, where he was elected to Phi Beta
Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. He earned his
J.D. with honors in 1969 at the University of Florida School of Law, where he
was executive editor of the law review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Professor Williams also earned his LL.M. in 1971 at New York University School
of Law, where he was a Ford Foundation Urban Law Fellow. In addition, he has
been a Chamberlain Fellow at Columbia University Law School, where he earned an
LL.M. in 1980. He is admitted to the bars of Florida, New Jersey, and the United
States Supreme Court. He has been the legislative advocacy director and
executive director of Florida Legal Services, Inc.; an International Legal
Center Fellow in Kabul, Afghanistan; and a reporter for the Florida Law
Revision Council's Landlord-Tenant Law Project. In addition, he served as a
legislative assistant to Florida Senator D. Robert Graham; a staff attorney
with Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.; and a law clerk to Chief Judge T.
Frank Hobson of the Florida Second District Court of Appeals. His books include
The Law of American State Constitutions
(2009); The New Jersey State Constitution
(second edition, 2012); and State Constitutional
Law, Cases and Materials fourth edition, 2006). He is the coauthor, with
Hetzel and Libonati, of Legislative Law
and Statutory Interpretation: Cases and
Materials (fourth edition, 2008). Among
his articles are: "Statutes as Sources
of Law beyond Their Terms in Common Law Cases" (George Washington Law Review); "State Constitutional Law Processes"
(William and Mary Law Review); "In
the Supreme Court's Shadow: Legitimacy
of State Rejection of Supreme Court Reasoning and Result" (South Carolina Law Review); "Equality Guarantees in State
Constitutional Law" (Texas Law Review); "The State Constitutions of the Founding Decade: Pennsylvania's Radical 1776 Constitution and
its Influence on American Constitutionalism" (Temple Law Review); and "In the Glare of the Supreme Court: Continuing Methodology and Legitimacy
Problems in Independent State Constitutional Rights Adjudication" (Notre Dame Law Review).
|
