Amir H. Ali

Amir H. Ali is a civil rights and Supreme Court lawyer. He directs the Washington D.C. Office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a national nonprofit that seeks to reform the criminal justice system. Ali also teaches at Harvard Law School.

Ali’s work focuses on racial justice, and giving a voice to condemned prisoners and to people who suffer violence at the hands of police. He has represented several families whose children were killed by the police in unjustified shootings. Ali has argued two significant civil rights cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and won both. In 2018, he helped obtain the release of Corey Williams, who had been wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row at age 16—a story which has since been profiled by CNN’s Death Row Stories. Ali has also advocated on behalf of the Muslim community, including participating in the legal challenge to the President’s Muslim Ban.

Ali serves on the Board of The Appellate Project, a nonprofit seeking to increase diversity in the legal profession. He has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and as a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.