Bill Newman has practiced civil rights, employee rights, and criminal defense law in Northampton, Massachusetts since 1976 and has served as the Director of the Western Regional Law Office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts since its founding in 1987. He and his co-counsel won the first le***an custody case at the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1980; achieved acquit
tals in the seditious conspiracy trial of the Ohio 7 in 1988; succeeded in having the death sentence of a young man on Georgia's death row overturned in 1994; prevailed in the precedent setting high school student free speech case at the Supreme Judicial Court in 1996; and achieved the release of his Guantanamo detainee client in 2006. Bill, who has been designated a Super Lawyer in the field of civil rights by Boston Magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation and the Rosenberg Fund for Children and on the Advisory Board of No More Guantanamos. Bill's first radio gig was in 1996-1998 as a commentator for WFCR's Morning Edition. In addition to the Nine O'clock Show, he is the author and voice of the widely broadcast radio commentary the Civil Liberties Minute™.
