Ian L. Courts
Secretary

Ian is an appellate and trial litigator whose passion for appellate advocacy led him to law school.

Ian has dedicated his legal career to public service, safety, and appellate litigation. Ian currently serves as an Assistant Attorney General in the North Carolina Department of Justice’s Special Prosecutions and Law Enforcement Division. 

Previously, Ian served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office’s Law Division-Appeals Unit, where he handled a large volume of Commonwealth responses to criminal appeals before Pennsylvania’s Superior and Supreme Courts.  Ian has also served as Counsel at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, where he represented clients in a variety of community and justice reform projects. He is also an American Constitution Society Next Generation Leader. 

In May 2020, Ian received his J.D. from North Carolina Central University School of Law. Ian interned for a number of state and federal judges, including U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Webster of the United States Middle District of North Carolina, Judge Wanda G. Bryant of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and Associate Justice Anita Earls of the North Carolina Supreme Court. In 2017, Ian received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Ian has published three law journal articles: “Justice in Black: Judge William H. Hastie’s and Justice Thurgood Marshall’s Fight for an Equalitarian Legal Order” and “Crimes Against Humanity, Apartheid: Its History and the Global Response” in the North Carolina Central Law Journal volume 43, Issue 1 (2020) and volume 44, Issue 2 (2022), respectively and“The Ratification of the Rome Statute: The Next Step in Establishing an American Equalitarian Legal Order”in the Journal of International Criminal Law, volume 4, Issue 2 (2023).