M.S.,
Carnegie Mellon University, 1995
B.A., Morehouse College, 1993
Lamar Willis has always had his eye on the public sector. As a high school
student he set his sights on a grand target: the office of mayor in his hometown
city of Atlanta. To get there, he’s taken great care to prepare himself
for a career in politics.
BC Law Professor Charles Baron encouraged Lamar to follow his dream. “I
told him what I wanted to do,” Lamar says, “and he reminded me that
being a politician is a noble profession, and the nobility of the profession
is only taken away when you take noble people out of it.”
Lamar found similar support from his peers at bc law, and that has continued
after graduation. Fundraising events for his campaign for City Council in Atlanta
were organized by classmates Richard Taylor and Cleo Anderson of BAN. “I
am excited that Lamar has decided to share his ideas and abilities with the
community,” Taylor wrote in a recent letter. “Lamar has demonstrated
a life-long commitment to public service. He has a lot to offer.”
Lamar, who served as Governor of the First Circuit for the American Bar Association’s
Law Student Division at BC Law, was a regional representative for the division
as well as the chapter President of the Black Law Students Association. He raised
funds to send bc law students to work on immigration issues in Haiti, and participated
in several moot court competitions, winning the 1996 BC Law-ABA Negotiation
Competition. He also made time to speak to young children about the advantages
of staying in school. At graduation, Lamar received the Susan Grant Desmarais
Award for Public Service Achievement and Leadership.
Lamar was sworn into office in January 2001 to serve the citizens of Atlanta
as the Post 3 At-Large Councilmember. He is currently the Chair of the Council’s
Public Safety & Legal Administration Committee, and serves on both the Transportation
and City Utilities Committees. He is also an attorney with Miller, Hamilton,
Snider & Odom, one of the leading law firms in the Southeast. In 2004, Lamar
was the first recipient of the bc law Alumni Association’s new Outstanding
Young Alumnus Award.
“Law school, if you take the challenge, allows you to bring everything
from real life into what you do,” Lamar says with a smile. “If you
don’t, you do a disservice to yourself, because the law doesn’t
exist in a vacuum. It never has.”