Lecturer, Department of Legal Studies.
108 Gordon Hall / 413.545.2305
jholmes [at] legal dot umass dot edu.
Judith Holmes is a Senior Lecturer for the Department of Legal Studies and an adjunct in the History Department. She also coordinates departmental internships, oversees the department’s Junior Year Writing program, and advises Legal Studies majors on applying to law school.
Professor Holmes joined the department in September 1996 after practicing law as a criminal defense attorney and then earning a Ph.D. in history. From 1969-1971, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. In 1973, Professor Holmes earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Chicago and, in 1976, a J.D. from the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University, Washington, D.C. While a law student, she was the principal organizer of the first national Women in the Law Conference. In 1976, she was a founding member of the Feminist Law Collective in Washington, D.C., where she represented tenant associations, non-profit businesses, juvenile defendants, and children in custody disputes. In 1981, she moved to New York City where she helped found the Resistance Law Office. Her clients included indigent defendants in state and federal court, community activists taking a principled position of non-cooperation with grand jury investigations, political prisoners, and revolutionaries charged with federal racketeering charges.
Some of the decisions involving her clients include Brown v. Neagle, 486 F.Supp. 364 (S.D.W.V. 1979) [prisoner's rights], In re Rosahn, 697 F.2d 296 (2d Cir. 1982) [grand jury], In re Cuebas, 83 Misc. (S.D.N.Y. 1983) [grand jury], In re Fadem, 84 Civ. 600 (E.D.N.Y. 1984) [grand jury], People v. Kuwasi Balagoon, et al., New York Supreme Court, 1984, Rockland Co. , United States v. Coltraine Chimurenga, et al., (S.D.N.Y. 1985)[5-month RICO trial], United States v. Marilyn Buck, (S.D.N.Y. 1985), 804 F.2d 239 (2d Cir. 1986), United States v. Marilyn Buck and Mutulu Shakur, (S.D.N.Y.) [8-month RICO trial], 813 F.2d 588 (2d Cir. 1987), 888 F.2d 234 (2d Cir. 1989).
In 1988, Professor Holmes moved to Western Massachusetts to study U.S. political history and Latin American history in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts. Her Ph.D. dissertation, “The Politics of Anticommunism in Massachusetts, 1930-1960,” tells the story of anticommunism on the state and local level. It examines the ideas and motives of anticommunists working behind the scene in unions, schools, libraries, state and local government, and the Catholic Church. Before joining the Department of Legal Studies, Professor Holmes taught U.S. and Latin American history at Greenfield Community College, the University of Connecticut, and the UMass Division of Continuing Education.
Professor Holmes’ courses in the Department of Legal Studies combine her interests in law, politics and history with her experience as a criminal defense attorney. She developed courses on Modern Political Trials, War Crimes Tribunals, the Death Penalty in America, Civil Liberties in Wartime, and Torture, Terrorism & Law. Professor Holmes also teaches the junior year writing course and the Introduction to Legal Studies. In one way or another, all of her courses require students to investigate the meaning of justice.
Professor Holmes has presented her work at academic conferences and community forums. During the 1980s, Professor Holmes presented papers on her work as a defense attorney at Rutgers University, New York University School of Law, Queens College School of Law (CUNY), National Lawyers Guild, and Center for Popular Economics Summer Institute, as well as at international conferences in Havana, Cuba, and Frankfurt, Germany. Since then, she has presented papers on her dissertation research at the New England Historical Association and the Social Science Historical Association. She has also given talks on war crimes tribunals and the International Criminal Court for the Law & Society Association, Peace and World Security Studies Program, Labor Studies forum, Hampshire College Law Program, Women’s Studies, Sunderland Congregational Church, and First Church of Northfield.
Professor Holmes’ primary focus in the department is on undergraduate teaching. In 1998, she received a Curriculum Development grant from the Five College Peace and World Security Studies Program. In 2001-2002, she received a $10,000 grant to assist the department in developing community service learning.
Professor Holmes serves on the University Writing Committee as well as department committees. In her spare time, she likes to read and sings with the Pioneer Valley Symphony Chorus.
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