Allison K. Tracey Recognized for Service as Adjunct Professor at William & Mary Law School
As a law student, Allison Tracey won awards for her legal writing expertise. And as an adjunct professor at William & Mary Law School, she has been honored for helping students become excellent legal writers in her Advanced Legal Writing classes.
On Wednesday, August 28, Tracey, an attorney at Collins & Slagle, received the 2024-25 St. George Tucker Adjunct Professorship Award during a reception celebrating the new academic year and welcoming adjunct faculty at William & Mary Law School.
The annual award recognizes an outstanding member of the Law School’s adjunct faculty for service on behalf of students and is selected by nomination from the Law School Community.
“We pride ourselves on instilling only the strongest legal writing skills in our students,” said A. Benjamin Spencer, Dean and Trustee Professor. “And legal writing seems to have been part of Allison’s destiny since law school.”
At Capital University Law School, Allison was recognized with the CALI Excellence for the Future Award for Legal Writing I, Legal Writing II, and Legal Drafting, given to the student earning the highest grade in the class.
“She has that writing thing down perfectly, and she shares her expertise by teaching Advanced Legal Writing: Pretrial Civil Practice,” Spencer said. “Our students truly appreciate her tireless work.”
During the reception, Spencer shared some examples of student praise culled from Tracey’s teaching evaluations. One of her students, for instance, commented that she “was always pleasant and created a very welcoming classroom environment.” The student also “appreciated her positivity and energy early in the morning.”
Another student praised Tracey for “encouraging everyone to participate and appreciate everyone's contributions.”
There was also an all-caps with exclamation points comment: “She is INCREDIBLE! The best writing class I have ever had!”
In 2022, Tracey was named an Ohio Super Lawyer. At Collins & Slagle, she has represented clients in complex personal injury litigation, corporate litigation, probate litigation, estate planning, and general corporate matters.
“Her expertise covers a lot of bases and it is all to our students’ benefit,” Spencer said.
Professor Laura Killinger, Director of the Law School’s Legal Practice Program, said that Tracey “brings expertise to every class session, weaving together her extensive real-world experience with textbook guidance. She clearly cares about each of her students and demands the best from each of them.”
Tracey graduated cum laude from Miami University with a B.S. in Finance and Management Information Systems and studied in Luxembourg. She then graduated magna cum laude from Capital University Law School where she served as Managing Editor of the Law Review and as a member of the Order of the Curia. She served as a Law clerk at Collins & Slagle and Porter Wright and in an Internship with the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
After law school, Tracey practiced in the Corporate and Securities department with the law firm of Porter, Wright, Morris, and Arthur. She joined Collins & Slagle in 2007.
Tracey began her teaching for the Law School online in 2021 during the Covid pandemic. When she started teaching in person, she found herself even more invested in the school and enjoyed sharing that each case is very different with a lot of nuances.
“I let the students know that I’ve yet to see a case that did not have some negative facts, even some quirky law, floating around,” Tracey said. “And I wish someone had said that to me in law school— that you're not going to have a great case every time.”
Tracey hopes her students leave her class with the confidence to know that as they develop effective communication and legal writing skills, there’s absolutely no limit to what they can achieve in their career.
“William & Mary students are naturally curious; they’re extraordinarily capable, and they are very hardworking,” Tracey said. “Plus, they’re learning from some of the very best in the field. They will leave here, surely, with the skills they need to succeed. But I also hope that they leave here with a deeper trust in themselves and elevated confidence in their own abilities.”
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St. George Tucker (1752-1827), the second professor of law at William & Mary, succeeded George Wythe on the faculty and was a pioneer in legal education. He drafted a formal description of the requirements for a law degree at the College, which included an exacting schedule of qualifying examinations in subjects such as history and government. Tucker’s course material was published in 1803 as the first American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. For much of the early 19th century, this volume was considered the leading authority on American law. Tucker was also a distinguished judge, serving on both the state and federal benches for more than 30 years.