Law 2023: A. BENJAMIN SPENCER

DEAN AND TRUSTEE PROFESSOR, WILLIAM & MARY LAW SCHOOL, WILLIAMSBURG

Published August 30, 2023 by Virginia Business

In 2020, Spencer became the first Black dean to lead William & Mary Law School. A year later, he was awarded the Marshall-Wythe School of Law Foundation Trustee Professorship. He previously held professorships and academic appointments at Harvard Law School, University of Chicago Law School, University of Virginia School of Law and others. Spencer started his career in private practice before joining the University of Richmond law faculty in 2004.

Although he originally went to law school to become a prosecutor, a class with Professor Arthur R. Miller sparked Spencer’s interest in civil procedure. In 2016, Spencer co-authored several volumes of the “Federal Practice and Procedure” reference book series by Charles Alan Wright and Miller, and he continues updating volumes of the treatise today.

Spencer served a three-year term on the U.S. Courts Advisory Committee on Civil Rules beginning in 2017. He serves in the Army Reserve as a government appellate attorney in the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

A graduate of Morehouse College, he earned his master’s degree in criminal justice policy from the London School of Economics and his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor for the Harvard Law Review.

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