Shahid Buttar
Shahid Buttar is a lawyer, grassroots organizer, hip-hop MC and poet. Professionally, he serves as Communications Director of a national 501(c)(3) organization whose membership includes over 6,000 progressive judges, lawyers, law professors and law students. Previously, his litigation practice included representing the campaign finance reform community in an ultimately successful appeal before the D.C. Circuit, and organizing the first recent litigation seeking same-sex marriage rights in the State of New York. Shahid worked in the investment banking industry from 1994 until 2000, when he received his B.A. summa cum laude from Loyola University Chicago. He was invited to join the Foreign Service of the U.S. State Department, but ultimately attended Stanford Law School, from which he graduated in 2003. Since then, Shahid has organized several collectives of political artists on both coasts, each of which remains active today. He has appeared from time to time in national print and broadcast media, including Democracy Now!, which included his speech outside the 2004 Republican National Convention as among the “Best of 2004."
