Graduate Faculty Trustee
Professor
School of Law

Warner Lawson, Jr., Esq., Graduate Faculty Trustee since 2008, has been a Professor of Law since 1981 and a member of the HU Law School faculty since 1974. He earned a B.A. degree in political science from Howard University in 1962 and a J.D. degree, cum laude, from Howard in 1969. An author of numerous scholarly articles, he served as Academic Associate Dean in the School of Law from 1979 to 1985 and again from 2005 to 2006. During his teaching career, he has visited more than 14 law schools; served as Distinguished Professor in Residence, Aetna Life & Casualty Co. Law Department, and was named to the Louisiana State University Law Center’s Teacher Hall of Fame. His public service includes Chair, D.C. Law Revision Commission; Member, Middle States Association evaluation review teams of the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and the University of Maryland School of Law; and Member, Contract Drafting Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners (multi-state). His Howard service includes Chair, Faculty Senate, Chair, Faculty Grievance Commission, and other roles in the Faculty Senate.

My parents counseled that living well flowed from a love of learning, valuing one's teachers, and from the joy found in service to others. I have come to believe that these same elements are also valuable in helping one set a just value on life and as an antidote to the motley confusion of ones’ acts, omissions, regrets and hopes. The other major influence in my life is having lived six of the seven-tenths of my life at Howard University as campus brat, undergraduate, law student and on the law school faculty. When my Faculty Senate colleagues asked me to serve as trustee, it was because of my experience and my vision for the future of "Mother Howard"--notably, Howard can only be a world class university if its faculty is properly respected and genuinely viewed as a partner with those who administer this enterprise.