Ann Claire Williams.

Retired Judge Ann Claire Williams joined Jones Day this month, where she plans to focus on strengthening the rule of law in Africa while bolstering the firm's trial and appellate practice.

Williams, the first African-American woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, retired from the bench at the beginning of the year. She was appointed to the appeals court by President Bill Clinton in 1999

“What I'm interested in is trying to make systemic change in cooperation with, in partnership with, what the country needs,” Williams said. “So we don't go in and do anything just because we as Americans say, 'Oh they need this. We want to help them.' We say to them, 'How can we most help you?'”

She said she was attracted to Jones Day because of her work with the firm through the nonprofit organization Lawyers Without Borders over the past few decades. Williams led several international delegations teaching trial and appellate advocacy at the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and has traveled to Kenya, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Uganda among other nations.

Williams explained that African governments, prosecutorial bodies or judiciaries approach Lawyers Without Borders, which then collaborates with the U.S. Departments of Justice and State to train judges and lawyers. Williams said her efforts have ranged from assisting with judicial opinion writing to leading judges overseas to do training in specific areas of the law.

Several law firms alongside Jones Day are named in Lawyers Without Borders' recent financial reports as part of the organization's support network, including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Reed Smith.

“As the foundation of any society, the rule of law is key to the operation of free markets and commercial transactions,” Jones Day managing partner Stephen Brogan said in a statement. “There is no better person to lead Jones Day's work in this regard in Africa than Ann.”

Williams also noted that she has a personal commitment to the African continent because, “As an African-American, I know that my roots were somewhere in Africa, [but] because of slavery of course I don't know where those roots are.”

“Even though we've made a lot of progress in a lot of areas, we still have some of the very same challenges that they have,” Williams said, comparing the American justice system to the corresponding institutions in Africa. “We just have a little more experience in dealing with them and we develop strategies that work.”

Williams punted on addressing the direction of the American federal judiciary and the blue slip controversy surrounding the Senate's consideration of Michael Brennan's Seventh Circuit nomination.

The Senate's blue slip tradition provides that a state's senators are consulted by the White House before a president nominates a judge from that state, according to a Congressional Research Service report detailing the policy. The senators historically have then had the opportunity to block the nominee from receiving a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and vote.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, declined to return a blue slip on Brennan's nomination, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, advanced consideration of Brennan's nomination anyway.

Williams said she thinks assessing nominees' qualifications and experience are crucial to the judicial selection process, which she said she has watched grow more political. The onus on those picking judges should be to find smart, capable and confident jurists with attention paid to the ethnic and gender diversity of the nominees selected, she said.

“The reason that we are an independent entity, the judiciary an independent branch, is that we are supposed to not be subject to those kinds of politics,” Williams said. “I think it's unfortunate that things have devolved in the way that they have and I think that no one is the winner for it.”