Judith Holmes , J.D., Ph.D.
_____________________________________

Department of Legal Studies
108 Gordon Hall, UMass/Amherst
Phone:  413-545-2305 / Fax: 413-545-1640
Email: jholmes@legal.umass.edu

 

 

 

Judith Holmes is a lecturer for the Department of Legal Studies and an adjunct in the History Department. She is also the Pre-Law Advisor for the declared Legal Studies majors only. Non-majors interested in pre-law information should investigate the Pre-Law web site. Professor Holmes also coordinates departmental internships and she has put together an information sheet on the internship process and finding internships, available in html or pdf. In particular, she coordinates the judicial internships with Judge Carhart. Students interested should plan on taking Legal Studies 391U as a prerequisite. We have posted the application form (due right before Registration, the semester prior) in both Word and PDF format.

Professor Holmes grew up in Milton, Massachusetts and graduated from Milton Academy in 1965. She attended Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire and worked in Boston for three years. After serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Monrovia, Liberia, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1973 and a J.D. from the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University, Washington, D.C. in 1976. In 1975, she was a principal organizer of the first Women in the Law Conference. Professor Holmes 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. She earned a Ph.D. in 1996. Her dissertation, The Politics of Anticommunism in Massachusetts, 1930-1960, tells the story of how anticommunism operated on the state and local level. It examines the ideas and motives of anticommunists working behind the scenes 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 and history with her experience as a criminal defense attorney. She has developed courses in 20th Century Political Trials, War Crimes Tribunals, the Death Penalty in America, and, beginning in Fall 2003, Civil Liberties in Wartime. In one way or another, all of her courses require students to investigate the meaning of justice.

During the 1980s, Professor Holmes presented papers on her work as an 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 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 addition to her regular courses, she has coordinates the internship program for the department and has developed a seminar for students participating in internships. In 2001-2002, she received a $10,000 grant to assist the department in developing community service learning. Her class on the death penalty has a service learning component.

In her spare time, Professor Holmes likes to read and wander aimlessly in the woods. She sings with the Pioneer Valley Symphony Chorus.