Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Hastings Foundation Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law

Professor Joan C. Williams is a Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Hastings Foundation Chair, and the Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School/Massachusetts Institute of Technology, J.D., and Master's Degree in City Planning (1980); Yale University, B.A., History (1974); and Princeton Day School (1970).

According to the New York Times, “she has something approaching rock-star status” among work/life advocates. Professor Williams won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It (Oxford University Press, 2000). She has authored or coauthored seventy academic articles and chapters and five books, most recently Reshaping The Work-Family Debate: Men and Class Matter (Harvard Univ. Press, 2010). Her project on work/life balance and gender bias in academia can be seen at www.genderbiasbingo.com.

In 2006, Professor Williams received the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Award for Women Lawyers of Achievement. In 2008, she gave the Massey Lectures in American Civilization at Harvard University.

Follow her Huffington Post blog; the WorkLife Law website is www.worklifelaw.org.

Courses Taught: Property; Feminist Legal Theory; and a Seminar on Current Issues on WorkLife Law

Expertise: Work/Family issues

My favorite part about teaching you is... involving students in making creative legal arguments that push the limits of the law.