Areas of Focus
Amir H. Ali is a veteran civil rights litigator and the President & Executive Director of the MacArthur Justice Center. He oversees the organization’s trial and appellate litigation, and steers the organization’s overall mission to create a more just and humane legal system. Mr. Ali has dedicated his career to economic and racial justice issues, and to elevating the voices of marginalized communities. He also teaches about the practice of law at Harvard Law School and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.
Mr. Ali has successfully litigated civil rights and criminal defense cases at all levels. His work spans the justice system from end to end: from the accountability of law enforcement and prosecutors, to the rights of criminal defendants, to criminal sentencing and the death penalty, to the rights of incarcerated people, to wrongful convictions. His victories have included landmark decisions in the U.S. Supreme Court that have been described in the press as “stunning” and “absolutely monumental” for civil rights and communities of color.
Mr. Ali is turned to as a national leader in litigating the civil rights issues of our time. He presently represents the mother of Ahmaud Arbery in a civil suit against the people responsible for her son’s murder. Mr. Ali also represented the family of Marquez Smart, a young and unarmed Black man who was shot and killed from behind by law enforcement in Kansas, ultimately obtaining a ruling that the officers violated clearly established law. Before that, Mr. Ali represented the family of Ryan Cole, a seventeen-year-old boy who was shot from behind by police officers in Texas. In that case, Mr. Ali ultimately argued before a panel of 18 judges on the Fifth Circuit, obtaining a ruling that the officers had violated clearly established law. More recently, Mr. Ali obtained a landmark decision on behalf of a Black man who was maliciously tased while lying face down on the floor.
Mr. Ali has taken three major civil rights cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, and prevailed in all three. During the 2021-22 Supreme Court term, Mr. Ali argued Thompson v. Clark, persuading the Court to recognize a cause of action against police officers who pursue false criminal charges and overturning the law that had applied in the vast majority of the country. In Garza v. Idaho, Mr. Ali successfully persuaded the Supreme Court to expand the constitutional right to counsel to include the right to an appeal, irrespective of the terms of a plea agreement. And in Welch v. United States, he persuaded the Supreme Court to grant relief to hundreds of people who were serving unconstitutional mandatory minimum sentences. Mr. Ali also represented a death-row prisoner in a string of victories before the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, leading to the permanent reversal of his client’s death sentence. Mr. Ali has litigated appeals in eleven of the thirteen federal circuits, and he has prevailed in every federal appeal he has argued except for one.
Mr. Ali has also been at the forefront of challenging policies that oppress and punish minority groups. For instance, Mr. Ali’s brief opposing President Trump’s Muslim Ban was cited by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her historic dissent.
Mr. Ali has held several leadership positions within the legal profession. He was a founding Board Member and Co-Chair of The Appellate Project, an organization that empowers students of color to thrive at the highest levels of the legal profession. Mr. Ali is also a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Barrister of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court. Before joining MJC, Mr. Ali was an attorney at Jenner & Block LLP and clerked for judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court of Canada. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Mr. Ali lives in Northeast Washington, DC with his wife, two kids, and boxer. He serves on the Board of the Mosaic Theatre Company of D.C., which performs culturally diverse art at the Atlas Theatre.