John Taylor Williams  
 
John Taylor “Ike”  Williams joined the firm in 2010 as Of Counsel.   His practice emphasizes intellectual property and First Amendment litigation and the creation, production, and licensing of intellectual property, particularly in the areas of publishing, film, television, and new media. He is the co-author with E. Gabriel Perle and Mark Fischer of the widely used Perle & Williams on Publishing Law (2 Vol. Aspen Law and Business), was a member of the National Endowment for the Arts Literary Panel for many years, served as the Chair of the Boston Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights; Co-Chair of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts and as Trustee of the Massachusetts College of Arts. 

As a founding Director of The Kneerim & Williams Agency, LLC, a literary and dramatic rights agency, with offices in Boston, New York and Washington, DC., Mr. Williams specializes in biography, history, politics, natural science and anthropology. Authors he represents include Howard Gardner, Michael MacDonald, Joseph J. Ellis, the late David H. Donald, E.O. Wilson, Jeff Kinney, Nicholas R. Burns, Tim Berners-Lee, Charles Ogletree, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, James MacGregor Burns, Rev. Peter J. Gomes, Michael Porter, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. 

He represents book to movie and screenplay and teleplay writers in the placement of their dramatic rights. Recent successful projects include Public Enemies based on the book The Vendetta: by Alston Purvis as a feature film produced by Universal Studios, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. He has also worked with the late Howard Zinn to complete The People Speak a dramatic series based on A Peoples History of the United States and co-produced by Chris Moore, starring Josh Brolin, Viggo Mortensen, Marisa Tomei, Danny Glover, etc., which aired on the History Channel in 2009, a companion series on English Human Rights hosted by Colin Firth in 2010, and I.M. Pei Building China Modern which premiered on American Masters in the early Spring of 2010. 

Mr. Williams has lectured on intellectual property and entertainment law at Suffolk, Northeastern, Boston University, Boston College, Wilkes University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard law schools, the Practicing Law Institute (PLI), and the International Bar Association. He has served as a panelist for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), Practising Law Institute, the International Bar Association, the American Historical Association, and the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Williams is listed in The Best Lawyers in America (in every edition since 1991); the Top 100 Massachusetts Super lawyers from 2004 - 2011 for entertainment, First Amendment, and media law. He is the recipient of the American Jewish Committee’s 2005 Judge Learned Hand Award and the Henry Cabot Lodge Award for public service from Middlesex School. 

Mr. Williams is admitted to the federal and state bars in Massachusetts and the United States Supreme Court. 

Mr. Williams is a 1965 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a 1960 graduate of Harvard College.

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John Taylor Williams
Of Counsel
Phone: 617-303-1658
Fax: 617-303-1666
Email: jtwilliams@sswg.com

John Taylor Williams
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