Denise McWilliams
Denise McWilliams
Director: Public Policy and Legal Affairs
AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts
Denise has been a lawyer for over 25 years, most of that time working in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She was the first director of the AIDS Law Project of the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defender and went from there to the Justice Resource Institute to establish the Health Law Institute. She then went to the Boston AIDS Consortium as the Executive Director. In 1997 she returned to the private practice of law
Throughout the epidemic, Denise has litigated precedent setting cases in discrimination, privacy and access to treatment. She was a member of the first Ryan White Planning Council in Boston and oversaw its expansion to most of Massachusetts and parts of New Hampshire. Denise was a co-author of “Until There’s a Cure”, the first comprehensive service plan for the Boston EMA. She has engaged in successful lobbying campaigns on both the state and federal levels seeking to secure the rights of and necessary benefits for people living with HIV/AIDS.
