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William Quigley

Clinic Professor Emeritus

Education

J.D., Loyola University New Orleans, 1977

B.A., Purdue University, 1971

Departments

  • College of Law
  • Law

Expertise

  • Civil Rights
  • Death Penalty
  • Law

Bio

Bill Quigley is an emeritus professor of law. He served as Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans for more than 30 years. Bill has been an active public interest and human rights lawyer since 1977. Bill has served as counsel with a wide range of public interest organizations on issues including Katrina social justice issues, public housing, voting rights, death penalty, living wage, human rights, civil liberties, educational reform, constitutional rights and civil disobedience. Bill has litigated numerous cases with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the Advancement Project, and with the ACLU of Louisiana where he was General Counsel for over 15 years. He has been an active lawyer with School of the Americas Watch and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.  Bill served as Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in NYC from 2009 to 2011 before returning to Loyola.

Bill teaches in the Law Clinic and teaches courses in Law and Poverty, Social Justice Lawyering, and Catholic Social Teaching and Law. His research and writing has focused on community lawyering, living wage, the right to a job, legal services, community organizing as part of effective lawyering, civil disobedience, high stakes testing, international human rights, revolutionary lawyering and a continuing history of how the laws have regulated the poor since colonial times.  He has served as an advisor on human and civil rights to Human Rights Watch USA, Amnesty International USA, and served as the Chair of the Louisiana Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights.

Bill is the author of Ending Poverty As We Know It: Guaranteeing A Right to A Job At A Living Wage (2003) and Storms Still Raging: Katrina, New Orleans and Social Justice (2008). In 2003, he was named the Pope Paul VI National Teacher of Peace by Pax Christi USA.  Bill is the recipient of the 2004 SALT Teaching Award presented by the Society of American Law Teachers.  He was awarded the Stanford Law School National Public Service Award in 2006, the 2006 Camille Gravel Civil Pro Bono Award from the Federal Bar Association New Orleans Chapter and the 2006 National Lawyers Guild Ernie Goodman award.  In 2007 the University of California named Bill their Social Justice Scholar in Residence.  In 2009, he was the Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow at Northeastern University School of Law.  In 2011, Bill was awarded the Fordham University School of Law Louis J. Lefkowitz Public Service Award and the Activist Scholar Award of the Urban Affairs Association. In 2015 Bill was awarded the Fr. Robert Drinan Pro Bono Award from American Association of Law Schools Pro Bono and Public Service Opportunities Section. In 2015 Bill was appointed Co-Dean of the School of Law and Political Science of Universite Fondation Dr. Aristide (UNIFA), Port au Prince, Haiti. Bill also serves as Pro-Bono General Counsel for the Washington Peace Center.

You may view a list of Professor Quigley's litigation and advocacy work here

Classes Taught

  • Law Clinic
  • Social Justice Lawyering
  • Catholic Social Teaching and Law

Areas of Expertise

Living wage, the right to a job, legal services, community organizing as part of effective lawyering, civil disobedience, high stakes testing, international human rights, revolutionary lawyering and a continuing history of how the laws have regulated the poor since colonial times.

Publications

Author, “The Continuing Significance of Race: Official Legislative Racial Discrimination in Louisiana 1861 to 1974,” Southern University Law Review (forthcoming 2020);

Co-author with Calvin Johnson and Ben Cohen, “An Analysis of the Economic Cost of Maintaining A Capital Punishment System In The Pelican State,” Loyola Public Interest Law Journal (2020) forthcoming; 

Author, “Ten Ways of Looking at Radical Social Change Lawyering,” book chapter in National Lawyers Guild book (forthcoming 2020); 

Co-author with Calvin Johnson and Ben Cohen, “An Analysis of the Economic Cost of Maintaining A Capital Punishment System In The Pelican State,” May 2, 2019; 

Author, "Law or Justice? What Future for the Legal Profession?", 14 Intercultural Human Rights Law Review of St. Thomas University 93 (2019); 

Author, “Angola Penitentiary: Time to Close,” 19 Loyola Journal Public Interest Law 163 (2018);

Author, “Lawyers and Civil Disobedience,” GPSOLO, American Bar Association, volume 35, Number 3 (May/June 2018); online here

Author, “Response to The Influence of Exile: Three Stories,” 76 Maryland Law Review Endnotes 47 (2017) online here.  

Author, “Thirteen Lessons Ten Years After Katrina,” 61 Loyola L Rev 623 (2015);

Co-Author, “Prisoner Human Rights Advocacy,”16 Loyola Journal Public Interest Law 1 (2015);

Author, “Thirteen Lessons Ten Years after Katrina,” Loyola L Rev (2015)

Co-Author, “Prisoner Human Rights Advocacy,” Loyola Journal Public Interest Law (2015)

Co-author, “Public Housing and Katrina,” chapter in BUILDING COMMUNITY RESILIENCE POST-DISASTER: A Guide for Affordable Housing and Community Economic Development Practitioners (published by the American Bar Association July 2013)

Author, “Ten Questions for Social Change Lawyers,” 17 Loyola University Chicago School of Law Public Interest Law Reporter 204 (2012)

Author, “Afterword,” in Rosalie Riegle, DOING TIME FOR PEACE: Resistance, Family and Community (Vanderbilt 2012)

Author, “Haiti Earthquake Response Justice Issues,” Arkansas Journal for Social Change, February 2012. http://ualr.edu/socialchange/2012/02/26/haiti-where-is-the-money/

Author, “Racism: The Crime in Criminal Justice,” 13 Loyola Journal Public Interest Law 417 (2012)

Author, “Justice and Law: The One Hundred Year Rule,” 15 City University of New York Law Review 1 (2011)

Author, “Twenty Examples of the Obama Administration Assault on Domestic Civil Liberties,” a chapter in the forthcoming book, HOPELESS: BARACK OBAMA AND THE POLITICS OF ILLUSION, edited by Jeffrey St. Clair (AK Press 2012)

Author, “Fourteen Examples of Racism in the Criminal Justice System,” reprinted in textbooks edited by Mark Stohr and Anthony Walsh, CORRECTIONS: The Essentials (2011 SAGE Publications) and CORRECTIONS: A Text/Reader (2011 SAGE Publications)

Author, “Torture and Human Rights Abuses at the School of the Americas-WHINSEC,” in “THE UNITED STATES AND TORTURE: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse 53, (Marjorie Cohn ed., NYU Press 2011)

Author, “Katrina: A Chance to Do It Right,” chapter in MANDATE FOR CHANGE: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond, edited by Chester W. Hartman (Lexington Books 2009)

Author, STORMS STILL RAGING: Katrina, New Orleans and Social Justice (2008)

Author, “What Katrina Revealed,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (2008)

Author, “Showing Conviction at Echo 9,” chapter in Joshua Frank & Jeffrey St. Clair RED STATE REBELS: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland (2008)

Author, “Voting Wrongs: New Orleans Voting Problems after Katrina,” Washington & Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice (2008)

Author, “Racial Discrimination and the legal system in the United States: The recent lessons from Louisiana,” United Nations Chronicle 2007, Volume XLIV, Number 3, September 2007

Author, “Human Rights Trump Property Rights – Lawyers Are Called to Become Revolutionaries,” 64 Guild Practitioner 95 (Summer 2007)

Co-author, “A Call for the Right to Return in the Gulf Coast,” chapter with Sharda Sekaran in BRINGING HUMAN RIGHTS HOME, edited by Cynthia Soohoo, Catherine Albisa, Martha F. Davis. (2008)

Author, “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice,” 1 DePaul Journal for Social Justice 7 (2007)

Author of Book Review, “There is no such thing as a Natural Disaster,” 41 Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy 99 (May-June 2007)

Author, “Obstacle to Opportunity: Housing that working and poor people can afford in New Orleans since Katrina,” 42 Wake Forest Law Review 393 (2007)

Author, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Katrina: Human and Civil Rights Left Behind Again,” 81 Tulane Law Review 955 (2007)

Author, “Boating Out of New Orleans; Who was left behind in Katrina and Who is being left behind now?” 40 Clearinghouse Review for Poverty Law 149 (May-June 2006)

Author, “A Radical Revolution of Values Addressing Poverty, Wealth and the Working Poor: The Social Responsibility of Lawyers” 20 Washington University Law School Journal of Law and Policy 101 (2006)

Author, “The Case for Closing the School of Americas,” 20 Brigham Young Journal of Public Law 1 (2006)

Author, “Reflections from the Journals of Prosecution Clinic Students,” 74 University of Mississippi Law Journal 1147 (2005)

Author, “Enforcing International Law Through Civil Disobedience: The Trial of the St. Patrick’s Four,” in Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler and Brendan Smith, IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York 2005)

Author, “Make No Mistake: Peace, Justice, and Love For The Gospel Tells Us So,” in Neil Paynter & Helen Boothroyd, editors, HOLY GROUND: Liturgies and worship resources for an engaged community (Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow 2005)

Author, “The Story of the Trial of the St. Patrick’s Four: Jury Votes 9-3 to Acquit Peace Activists Despite Admission They Poured Blood in Military Recruiting Center,” 61 Guild Practitioner, Number 2, 110, Spring 2004 (published November 2004)

Author, “Prison Work, Wages and Catholic Social Thought: Justice Demands Decent Work for Decent Wages, Even for Prisoners,” 44 Santa Clara University Law Review 1159 (2004)

Author, “Seven Principles for Catholic Law Schools Serious About A Preferential Option for the Poor,” 1 St. Thomas University Law Journal 128 (2003)

Author, “Catholic Social Thought and the Amorality of Corporations: Time to Abolish Corporate Personhood,” in 5 Loyola University Journal of Public Interest Law 109 (2004)

Author, Book Review, Human Rights Review, John H. Scott, WITNESS TO THE TRUTH: My Struggle for Human Rights in Louisiana (Spring 2004)

Author, “Ending Poverty by Creating a Constitutional Right to a Living Wage,” JURIST, September 24, 2003. Reprinted in OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS: Social Justice (OVPSJ) 2005

Author, “The Necessity Defense in Civil Disobedience Cases: Bring in the Jury” 38 New England Journal of Law 3 (2003)

Author, “Just Wag4es and Salaries,” 3 Encyclopedia of Bioethics 136 (3d ed., Thompson Gale 2004)

Author, ENDING POVERTY: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage (Temple University Press, 2003)

Author, “America, Yes! War, No.” JURIST, November 12, 2002

Author, “The earliest years of Federal Social Welfare Legislation: Federal Poor Relief Prior to the Civil War,” 79 University of Detroit Mercy Law Review 157 (2002)

Author, “Full-time Workers Should Not Be Poor: The Living Wage Movement,” 70 University of Mississippi Law Journal 889 (2001). Reprinted in WORK LAW: Cases and Materials (Lexis 2005)

Author, “Due Process Rights for Grade School Students Subjected to High-Stakes Testing,” 10 Boston U Public Law Journal 284 (2001)

Author, “Predictions for Poverty Law,” 47 Louisiana Bar Journal 407 (February 2000)

Author, “The Demise of Law Reform and the Triumph of Legal Aid: Congress and the Legal Services Corporation from the 1960's to the 1990's,” 17 St. Louis Public Law Journal 241-264 (1998) [reprinted in part in West Publishing Company casebook SOCIAL JUSTICE: PROFESSIONALS, COMMUNITIES AND LAW, by Martha R. Mahoney, John O. Calmore and Stephanie M. Wildman., 4-03] Cited as a reference in Alan W. Houseman and Linda E. Perle, SECURING EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL: A Brief History of Civil Legal Assistance in the United States, CLASP (November 2003)

Author, "The Right to Work and Earn a Living Wage: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment," 2 City University of New York Law Review 139-182 (1998) [reprinted in part in West Publishing Company casebook POVERTY LAW, Cases and Materials, Second Edition, edited by Juliet M. Brodie pending 2004]

Author, "Backwards to the Future: Welfare Reform in the Millennium Using Poor Law Principles from the Middle Ages," 9 Stanford Law and Policy Review 101 (1998)

Author, “Rumblings of Reform: Northern Poor Laws 1820-1860,” 26 Capital University Law Review 739- 774 (1997)

Author, "The Quicksands of the Poor Law: Poor Relief Legislation in a Growing Nation, 1790-1820," 18 Northern Illinois University Law Review 1-98 (1997)

Co-author, "The Significance of Race: Legislative Racial Discrimination in Louisiana, 1803-1865," 24 Southern University Law Review 145-205 (1997)

Author, "Reluctant Charity: Poor Laws in the Original Thirteen States," 31 U. Richmond Law Review 111- 178 (1997)

Author, "Five Hundred Years of English Poor Laws, 1349-1834: Regulating the Working and Nonworking Poor," 30 Akron Law Review 73-128 (1996)

Author, "Work or Starve: Colonial American Poor Laws" 31 U. San Francisco Law Review 35-83 (1996)

Author, "A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work: Time to Raise and Index the Minimum Wage," 27 St. Mary's Journal 513-556 (1996) cited by US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit in their decision upholding the living wage ordinance of Berkeley CA June 16, 2004. See Rule One Corporation v City of Berkeley, USCA, 9th Cir. 02-15762, June 16, 2004

Author, "Primer on Minimum Wage and Overtime Issues Under the Fair Labor Standards Act for Low Wage Workers and Their Advocates," 29 Clearinghouse Review 925-943 (February 1996)

Author, Book Review of The War Against the Poor by Herbert Gans, 1 Detroit College of Law Review 17 (1996).

Author, "De-Mythologizing Welfare: Book Review of Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare," 2 Loyola Poverty Law Journal 179-215 (1996)

Author, "Louis Westerfield, 1949-1996" Black Issues in Higher Education, Volume 13, No 16, October 3, 1996, 25

Co-author, "Remembering Dean Louis Westerfield: Thoughts from Friends, Colleagues, and Former Students," 42 Loyola Law Review 405, 409-411 (1996)

Author, "Introduction to Clinical Teaching for the New Clinical Teacher: A View from the First Floor," 28 Akron Law Review 463-496 (1995). Used at South Asia Clinical Education Conference 1995; used in conference for South Africa clinical educators at University of Maryland 11-95; used in conference for South America clinical educators by Gonzaga Law School 4-96; translated into Polish 11-96; translated into Chinese 2002; used at AALS New Clinical Teacher Workshops

Author, Book Review of The Selling of the South, 1 Loyola Poverty Law Journal 119-124 (1995)

Author, "Billing Issues for Legal Services Advocates," sidebar comments in "Federal Statutory Attorney Fees: Common Issues and Recent Cases," 28 Clearinghouse Review 752, November 1994

Author, "Reflections of Community Organizers: Lawyering for Empowerment of Community Organizations," 21 Ohio Northern University Law Review 455-480 (1994). [reprinted in part in West Publishing Company casebook SOCIAL JUSTICE: PROFESSIONALS, COMMUNITIES AND LAW, by Martha R. Mahoney, John O. Calmore and Stephanie M. Wildman., 4-03]

Author, "The Unmet Civil Legal Needs of the Poor In Louisiana," 40 Louisiana Bar Journal 477 (1993)

Author, "Affirmative Action: Necessary and Good," 2 American Constitution Journal of Law and Public Policy 20 (1992)

Author, "The Unmet Civil Legal Needs of the Poor in Louisiana," 19 Southern University Law Review 273- 296 (1992)

Author, Book Review of Stepping Stones: Successful Advocacy for Children, 37 Loyola Law Review 401 (1991)

Author, "Constitutional Law" in Fifth Circuit Symposium, 34 Loyola Law Review 881 (1989)