Roger A. Fairfax, Jr. is the 26th Dean of the Howard University School of Law. He previously served as the 19th Dean of the American University Washington College of Law, and the Kohn Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor at George Washington University Law School. He teaches and conducts research on criminal law and procedure, professional responsibility, and civil rights legal history, and his scholarship is published in books and leading journals.

After clerking for Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Dean Fairfax served as an Attorney General Honors Program Trial Attorney in the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, and practiced at an international law firm, where he handled complex trial and appellate litigation, internal investigations, securities enforcement, white-collar criminal matters, and pro bono civil rights and indigent criminal defense cases.

Fairfax serves on the boards of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, the ABA Criminal Justice magazine, and City Year DC, and he is a member of the American Law Institute, the Association of American Law Schools Deans’ Steering Committee, and the Judicial Conference of the United States advisory committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. He previously served on the Board of Governors of the National Bar Association, the boards of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and Southeastern Association of Law Schools, and the ABA Criminal Justice Section Council.

Dean Fairfax earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, a graduate degree from the University of London, and his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an NAACP Legal Defense Fund Scholar and an editor of the Harvard Law Review.