About

Serena M. Williams is Emerita Professor of Law at Delaware Law School, who taught and researches in property and housing law. She served as Assistant Dean in the Office of Student Affairs from January 2006 to December 2011 and again from July 2018 to December 2023.

Professor Williams taught Property Law and has also taught courses in Landlord/Tenant Law, Environmental Justice, and Housing Law. From 2020, Professor Williams taught in the Trial Admissions Program at DLS, a summer program that admits students to the law school based upon their demonstrated ability to succeed in the coursework of the program. From 2014 to 2017, she taught in the Jurist Academy, a summer pre-law program held at DLS.

Professor Williams received an A.B. in Economics from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1981. She received her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1984 and her LL.M. in Land Use Management and Control from the George Washington University Law School in 1992.

Following graduation from law school, Professor Williams practiced as an attorney in the Office of Program Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She also served as a Financial Economist in the Office of Economics and Tax Policy of the Washington, D.C., Department of Finance and Revenue. As a law student, she clerked for the National Association of Home Builders and participated in the Street Law Clinic teaching high school students in public schools in Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining the faculty at Delaware Law School, Professor Williams taught property, land use, and environmental law at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky. She also taught as an instructor of legal writing at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., and as a Teaching Fellow in Legal Writing at the George Washington University Law Center.

Professor Williams served as Chair of the AALS Committee on the Recruitment and Retention of Minority Law Teachers and Students in 2013. She presented on teaching pedagogy and strategies at the New Law Teachers Conference and the Workshop for Pre-tenured People of Color Law School Teachers, both sponsored by the AALS.

Professor Williams is admitted to practice in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

What inspires me to teach?

I am inspired to teach by the students. I teach Property I, a first-year course. The course is scheduled for the fall for full-time students and for the spring for extended division students.  

During the fall semester, I meet the students during their very first week of law school. I see them grow as they struggle not only with property concepts, but as they struggle with the thought that the law may not be able to resolve all problems. I am inspired by the students as they mature in their thinking about the law.

During the spring semester, I teach the course in the evening. It meets twice a week, including one evening from 8:25 to 10:15 p.m.  Many of the students in the course are employed full-time, thus they may work an 8 or 9-hour day, then drive for miles to get to campus, quickly grab a bite to eat, and then sit in class for four hours that evening. For some of those students, the only time they are able to meet with me to ask questions or review their notes or clarify a comment is after that late night class. Nothing is more inspiring than the face of a student who finally grasps an estates and future interest problem at 10:30 p.m. on a cold winter night!