September 14, 2023
William & Mary Law School dean and professor A. Benjamin Spencer has become affiliated with McGuireWoods as Of Counsel. In this role, Dean Spencer will consult with firm lawyers and clients on pending legal matters and work on learning initiatives and client development opportunities.
Dean Spencer is well-known in the legal community as a former law professor at the University of Virginia, Harvard, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Richmond and in his current position at William & Mary. He was valedictorian of his undergraduate class at Morehouse College and was a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he received a master’s degree in criminal justice policy. He was on the law review at Harvard Law School, graduating in 2001.
He served as a law clerk to Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and was in private practice for three years as an associate at Shearman & Sterling before joining the law faculty at the University of Richmond. He served as special assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2009 through 2014. Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. appointed Dean Spencer to two three-year terms on the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure beginning in 2017, and he is an author of multiple volumes of Wright and Miller's “Federal Practice & Procedure,” the preeminent reference for civil procedure in the United States.
In addition to his career in academia, Dean Spencer serves in the U.S. Army Reserve as an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. He is assigned to the Government Appellate Division of the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency to represent the Army in cases before the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
“We are delighted to announce this affiliation,” said McGuireWoods Managing Partner Tracy Walker. “Dean Spencer is a widely regarded legal scholar with unparalleled experience in the area of federal civil procedure. He is a gifted lawyer and a wise and thoughtful leader. Our firm and clients will benefit mightily from his counsel.”