Posted by Mary Wimberley on 2012-01-27

 

Attorney and federal defender Carlos Williams will address the annual Thurgood Marshall symposium at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law Thursday, Feb. 9.

Williams, executive director of the southern district of the Alabama Federal Defenders Organization, Inc., will speak at 11 a.m. in the moot courtroom of Robinson law building. The public is invited free of charge.

The theme of the program is “Race Matters: A conversation about how the racial composition of a jury affects trial proceedings and a defendant’s outcomes.”

Williams, a former staff attorney with Legal Services Corporation of Alabama and director of its migrant project, is a past president of the Mobile Bar Association.

The Thurgood Marshall symposium is named to honor the first African-American to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Cumberland’s Black Law Students Association hosts the symposium annually during Black History Month to promote awareness of legal issues involving minorities.

Nannie Reed, a second-year law student from Los Angeles, Calif., is symposium organizer.

 

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.