Associate Dean Brian Wall Receives John Marshall Award
Associate Dean Brian Wall received the John Marshall Award during William & Mary Law School’s Commencement Ceremony at Kaplan Arena on Saturday, May 17. The award honors a faculty or staff member who has demonstrated “character, leadership, and a spirit of selfless service to the Law School community.”
A member of the Class of 2011, Dean Wall not only serves full-time as Associate Dean for Student Affairs & Academic Support, but teaches a number of courses, including trusts & estates and advanced legal analysis & doctrine.
Students have given him very high marks for his work here, and one student says that he “embodies…the mission of William & Mary Law School.” This approach definitely pays off, and Dean A. Benjamin Spencer was pleased to note that Dean Wall, the recipient of this year’s John Marshall Teaching Award, is also last year’s recipient of the Walter L. Williams, Jr. Memorial Teaching Award.
Wall earned his B.A. and M.A. from Brigham Young University, after which he earned his J.D. from William & Mary Law School and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. Prior to joining the Boyd School of Law, he was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
As a William & Mary law student, Wall was President of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the International Law Society, Chief of Staff for the Student Bar Association, and Senior Articles Editor of the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. In 2021, he served on his 10th Law School Reunion Gift Committee.
In April, Wall was selected to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program (VJLAP) for a term of two years. He will be introduced and have his first board meeting in July.
Wall’s published scholarship combines his fields of legal thought and English and American literature. His Doctoral thesis, for instance, examined transatlantic depictions of property and criminal law in nineteenth-century British and American fiction.