Damian Williams (lawyer)
Andre Damian Williams Jr. (born 1980)[1] is an American lawyer who is the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. He is the first African-American U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.[2]
Damian Williams
Early life and education[edit]
Williams was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and raised in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the son of Jamaican immigrants.[3] His parents are divorced.[2] He attended Woodward Academy for high school where he was student body president in his final year.[2] He received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Harvard University in 2002 and a Master of Philosophy in international relations from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 2003, where he was awarded the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholarship in 2002.[1][4] Afterward, Williams worked for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and South Carolina and as a "body man" for the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe.[2] He then enrolled at Yale Law School. Following his first year of law school, Williams clerked for the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He obtained a Juris Doctor from Yale in 2007,[5] where he was supported by The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans and was also an editor of the Yale Law Journal.[6] One of his essays about improving voting rights after Hurricane Katrina was published in the Yale Law Journal in 2007.[2][7]