Vic Walczak is Legal Director of the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Pennsylvania.
In that job he has brought pioneering litigation alleging widespread violation of the rights of families by the child welfare system in Beaver County, Pa. Other litigation brought by Walczak led to major reforms in the Pittsburgh Police Department and the Allegheny County Public Defender’s office. He is leading a national team of ACLU lawyers challenging a Secret Service practice of relegating protesters to areas where they can’t be seen or heard during Presidential visits.
Before moving to Pittsburgh, Walczak was chief attorney for the Prisoner Assistance Project of the Legal Aid Bureau in Baltimore, where he won improvements in prison law libraries, work release and parole practices and treatment of Muslim inmates. He also has worked as a social worker helping troubled juveniles, and for the Conservation Law Foundation of New England.
In 1983, he traveled to Poland, then under martial law, and aided underground activists for the Solidarity trade union.
Walczak is a graduate of Colgate University and a cum laude graduate of Boston College Law School. He has appeared on National Public Radio, CBS News 48 Hours, CNN, MSNBC, and all four national network evening news programs. He has been quoted in The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and many other newspapers. He is a recipient of the Liberty Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. In 2003 he was voted Federal Lawyer of the Year by the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the Federal Bar Association.