Eboni S. Nelson

Dean and Professor of Law

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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 serves as the chief academic, budget, administrative, strategy, and policy leader for the law school. She came to UConn Law from the University of South Carolina School of Law, where she taught for 13 years and served as the associate dean for academic affairs beginning in 2018. At South Carolina Law, she received the Best Classroom Teacher and Outstanding Faculty Service awards. Before joining the South Carolina Law faculty, 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 enjoys providing strategic leadership to advance UConn Law’s mission and empowering students, staff, and faculty to achieve their personal and professional goals.

In 2023, the Hartford Business Journal recognized her with the Top 25 Women in Business Award and included her on its 2022 Power 50 List of influential leaders in the Greater Hartford area. 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. In 2024, the Greater Hartford Chapter of the Links, Inc. recognized her as a Hats Off to Women Who Lead Honoree, and she is a 2026 recipient of the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity Edwin Archer Randolph Award.

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 currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Connecticut Bar Foundation, the Connecticut Supreme Court Historical Society, and the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity. She previously served on the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford Board of Trustees. She served as vice chair of the South Carolina Commission on Consumer Affairs and chair of the South Carolina State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She is an American Bar Foundation Fellow, a Connecticut Bar Foundation James W. Cooper Fellow, and a member of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.