Timothy Wilton

Timothy Wilton is an experienced litigator and trial lawyer with over 50 years of practice in both civil and criminal cases. He has handled numerous trials and appeals in state and federal courts around the country and in the Supreme Court of the United States. He is also a tenured Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where he is the Director of the Trial and Appellate Advocacy Concentration.

Professor Wilton grew up in Wallingford, Connecticut. He received a scholarship to attend The Choate School, a nationally known preparatory school in Wallingford, as a “townie,” a local day student. After graduating, he attended Harvard College and then Harvard Law School, all on full scholarship. At Harvard, Professor Wilton earned not only his undergraduate degree, but his law school and advanced law school degree, making him a “triple Crimson.”

Professor Wilton began his career as a trial lawyer while still a student at Harvard Law School, representing criminal defendants and incarcerated psychiatric patients with the Harvard Voluntary Defenders. At the same time, he worked part time for a well-known Boston trial lawyer and a prominent civil liberties advocate, representing plaintiffs in personal injury cases, federal civil rights and civil liberties litigation, and criminal defense.

Following law school, Professor Wilton was recruited by the Roxbury Defenders Committee to represent criminal defendants charged with life imprisonment felonies and thereafter was appointed to be the Director of Law Reform Litigation for the Prisoners’ Rights Project in Boston. In these roles, Professor Wilton tried dozens of cases in the Superior Court in Massachusetts and litigated numerous Constitutional issues in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and in the federal trial and appellate courts.

Professor Wilton began his teaching career at Harvard Law School, while studying for his advanced legal studies (LL.M.) degree. He was awarded a two-year Teaching Fellowship and taught several classes in litigation and trial practice. From there, Professor Wilton continued his teaching career, first at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit and, since 1984, at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. Professor Wilton has taught courses in Civil Procedure, Evidence, Public Interest Litigation, Constitutional Law, and Trial Advocacy. He designed and is the Director of the Trial and Appellate Advocacy Concentration program at Suffolk University Law School, and he heads up Suffolk Law’s National Trial Team, which is ranked as one of the top law school trial advocacy training programs in the nation.

Professor Wilton has continued to practice law over the course of his teaching career. Before representing individual plaintiffs in high stakes civil cases, he defended numerous major manufacturers and insurance companies. His knowledge of how cases are defended has proved to be invaluable to presenting a winning case at trial. He has also been called upon to develop and participate in programs to train practicing lawyers in advanced techniques of trial and appellate litigation.

Professor Wilton was the first Executive Director of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, which provides Board Certification for experienced lawyers in the fields of Civil or Criminal Trial Advocacy. He served as Chair of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Committee on Certification of Lawyer Specialization and was appointed by the President of the American Bar Association to the ABA Standing Committee on Specialization. He was Vice-Chair of the Committee on Products, General Liability and Consumer Law of the Section of Tort and Insurance Practice of the American Bar Association, Chair of the Litigation Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Legal Advocacy Educators. He has served on the Judicial Administration Section Council, the Juror Communications Task Force, and as Co-Chair of the Amicus Committee of the Massachusetts Bar Association. Professor Wilton has been featured on multiple local and national news programs, and he has been named repeatedly as a “Best Lawyer” by Best Lawyers and U.S. New & World Report.

Professor Wilton has published numerous book chapters and articles on litigation topics in law reviews and practice journals around the country.

Attorney Recognition

• Named repeatedly as a “Best Lawyer” by Best Lawyers and U.S. New & World Report

Professional Organizations

• National Association of Legal Advocacy Educators

• American Association for Justice

• Massachusetts Bar Association

• Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys