WOC Advocacy Council Member

Theresa Wilson, Esq. is a nationally recognized equity strategist, legal professional, and transformational leader whose career spans nearly three decades at the intersection of juvenile justice, child welfare, mental health, and systemic reform. A TEDx speaker, Theresa is known for her powerful call to “Know Your Place,” challenging institutions and individuals alike to confront bias, identity, structural inequities and place consciousness at a systemic level.  The inaugural Racial Equity Statewide Training Lead for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, Theresa designed and implemented a comprehensive statewide racial equity strategy reaching more than 3,000 attorneys and staff in 20+ offices across Massachusetts. 

She was the architect of the Why Race Matters Speaker Series, the Racial Equity Internship Program, and the Public Defenders Anti-Racism Training Team, enterprise-wide initiatives integrating curriculum development, policy reform, leadership coaching, and data-informed systems change.  Her work has reshaped how public defense offices address bias, professional identity, and equitable outcomes.  Theresa’s career includes service as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Attorney General and Attorney in Charge and Deputy Borough Chief in the New York City Law Department.  She has litigated complex state and federal matters including civil rights, wrongful death, and homicide cases, grounding her equity work in deep courtroom experience. A former prosecutor and public defender, Theresa lives at the intersection of race and gender with the lived experience of being a mother of a child with mental health challenges and the daughter of a police officer.

These experiences allow a perspective and insight into this work which is multi-faceted and invaluable.  Theresa is the founder of the Restoring Mindful Systems: The Chrysalis Project, a restorative-based consulting and training initiative designed to reduce systemic inequities through tools, curricula, and strategic engagement.  She wants people to leave her trainings understanding the fluidity of privilege and inspired to do the internal and external work to embrace place consciousness and make our legal system a place where no one is relegated by any barriers, where diversity and inclusion are embraced as necessary to equity, and where fair and just systems can first be envisioned and then actually achieved.  Theresa also serves as President-Elect of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association where she conceived an initiative to diversify the bench by preparing attorneys from historically marginalized communities for judicial service through targeted coaching, structured feedback, and cultivation of high-impact professional networks.  An adjunct law professor, restorative justice trainer, and published author, Theresa continues to advance a vision of justice rooted in equity, community partnership, and structural transformation.