Law School Commencement Speakers

2026 Commencement Speaker
John Ward (’76), Founder of GLAD

Boston University School of Law is honored to announce that John Ward (’76) will deliver to 2026 Commencement Address.

John Ward received his JD degree from BU Law School in 1976. After clerking for Judge Raymond Pettine in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, he went into private practice in Boston in 1977. In 1978, in response to a pattern of police harrassment of gay men, he gathered a group of community activists and founded GLAD, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (now GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders). He has handled a number of noteworthy cases involving LGBTQ clients, including the Rhode Island prom case, vindicating the right of a high school senior to bring another young man to the prom as his date, and the Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade case. In that case, he was the first openly gay man to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Recently, he was co-counsel in a criminal case involving the first transgender woman in Massachusetts to be housed in a gender-appropriate prison – MCI Framingham, defending her against what the defense alleged was a retaliatory criminal prosecution.

John also spent fifteen years representing death row inmates in post-conviction proceedings in California.

John received the Spirit of Justice Award from GLAD in 2008. Previous recipients have been Governor Deval Patrick, Attorney General Eric Holder and author Tony Kushner. In 2021, John was selected by the History Project to receive the Historymaker Award.

For the past several years, John has taught seminars at BU Law School as well as Boston CollegeLaw School: The Courts and the LGBTQ Movement, A Critical Assessment.

John and his husband Alain Balseiro live in Tarragona, Catalunya, Spain.