Law: A. BENJAMIN SPENCER

In 2020, Spencer became the first Black dean of America’s oldest law school. A graduate of Morehouse College, Harvard Law School and the London School of Economics and Political Science, Spencer started his career in private practice before joining the law faculty at the University of Richmond in 2004.

An expert in civil procedure and federal courts, Spencer has taught at Harvard, served as associate dean for research at Washington and Lee University School of Law and was the University of Virginia’s Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law. At W&M, he was awarded the Marshall-Wythe School of Law Foundation Trustee Professorship last year.

Outside the university, Spencer sits on the U.S. Courts Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. He is also an active member of the U.S. Army Reserve, serving as a government appellate attorney, representing the Army before the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Spencer comes from a long line of trailblazers. His father, James R. Spencer, was the first Black federal judge in Virginia, and his grandfather, Adam S. Arnold, was the first Black professor at the University of Notre Dame.