Rakim Brooks

Rakim H. D. Brooks is a public interest appellate lawyer and the president of Alliance for Justice (AFJ), a national association of over 150 organizations building power, transforming courts, and securing justice for all. Before joining AFJ as its president, Brooks worked at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as senior campaign manager for the ACLU’s Systemic Equality Campaign and recently served as a member of the Biden-Harris transition team. In addition to leading AFJ, Brooks sits on the advisory board for the Brown Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and Getting Out, Staying Out in his native East Harlem. Brooks clerked for Justice Edwin Cameron on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit. He has an A.B. from Brown University; a M.Phil in Politics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar and a J.D. and M.B.A. from Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management. As a contributor to Democracy Docket, Brooks writes about issues relating to our state and federal courts as well as reforms to our judicial systems.