Eboni S. Nelson

Dean and Professor of Law


Education/Professional Certification

JD, Harvard Law School
BA, Wake Forest University

Expertise

Contracts, Commercial Law, Consumer Law and Race, Class and Education

Biography

Eboni S. Nelson became dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law on July 31, 2020. She came to UConn from the University of South Carolina School of Law, where she taught for 13 years. From 2018 onward, she served as the associate dean for academic affairs. At South Carolina Law, she received the Best Classroom Teacher and Outstanding Faculty Service awards. She has been recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Blacks in Connecticut by the state conference of the NAACP and is the recipient of the 2022 George W. Crawford Black Bar Association Visionary Award. The Hartford Business Journal included her on its 2022 Power 50 List of influential leaders in the Greater Hartford area, and the Northeast Black Law Students Association named her an Inaugural Violet King Henry Woman of Excellence Honoree.

Before joining the South Carolina Law faculty in 2007, Dean Nelson taught at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law and practiced employee benefits law at Bracewell LLP in Houston, Texas. She teaches in the fields of Contracts; Commercial Law; Consumer Law; and Race, Class and Education. Her scholarship, which has been published in numerous law review journals and other publications, focuses on education law and policy, and she is especially interested in the availability of equitable educational opportunities for students of color and those from economically challenged backgrounds.

Dean Nelson graduated summa cum laude from Wake Forest University and earned her JD from Harvard Law School, where she served as a Contracts teaching assistant to then-Professor Elizabeth Warren.

Throughout her career, Dean Nelson has been committed to public service. She served as chair of the South Carolina State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and vice chair of the South Carolina Commission on Consumer Affairs. She has also been a member of the Law School Admission Council Finance and Legal Affairs Committee, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and the American Bar Association Sabbatical Review Site Team. She currently serves on the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford Board of Trustees and the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity Board of Directors. She is a Connecticut Bar Foundation James W. Cooper Fellow and a member of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Eboni Nelson
Contact Information
Emaillawdean@uconn.edu
Phone(860) 570-5127
Curriculum Vitae Nelson_CV
Office LocationChase 103
LinkSSRN