Will Harrell
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Will has been VOTE's Senior Public Policy Counsel since 2018. He maintains other consulting arrangements such as policy advocacy and field organizing for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Mississippi. He recently transitioned out of work for the American Civil Liberties Union Campaign for Smart Justice where worked on reforms in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and Kentucky.
Will is founder and director of the Justice Collaborative, LLC, a criminal and juvenile justice consulting firm that has engaged in a range of projects, including monitoring conditions of confinement at the New Orleans juvenile detention facility as well as serving as the Lead Federal Monitor for the Ohio juvenile prison system, and providing technical assistance throughout the country through the National Center for Youth in Custody, a project of the federal Office on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Will frequently is hired as an expert witness in Texas capital cases. Before being appointed Lead Federal Monitor and Special Master for the Ohio Department of Youth Services by Federal District Court Judge Algenon Marbley, Will was the Louisiana and Mississippi Public Policy Director for the Southern Poverty Law Center. |
Immediately after law school, Will was a Thurgood Marshall Law Fellow at the ACLU National Prison Project. From there he spent several years in Latin America where he served as the Legal Director of El Centro para la Accion en Derechos Humanos bringing cases before the Organization of American States and the United Nations. He also conducted an evaluation of all Guatemalan prisons and jails for the UN. After receiving his LL.M. at the American University in 1998, will represented migrant farmworkers in Colorado. From 1998 to 2000, Will served as the founding Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild National Police Accountability Project based at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. From 2000 to 2007, Will served as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Texas. He left that post when Governor Rick Perry appointed him as Chief Independent Ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission. During his tenure at the ACLU, and as a representative of the NAACP and the League of Latin American Citizens, Will lead a diverse coalition that ushered in massive reforms of the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Texas Monthly Magazine designated Will as one of 35 people shaping the future of Texas in recognition of his contribution to criminal justice reform. He was a founding Board member of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition in 2000 and has served for more than a decade as the Chairperson. He also serves on the Board for Just Liberty, another Texas criminal justice reform organization.
Will is a graduate of the University of Texas in Austin (BA in History) and American University Washington College of Law (JD and LL.M. in International Human Rights). He has lectured extensively and taught criminal justice related courses at La Universidad Catolica in Quito, Ecuador, American University, and Texas State University.
