Tracie N. Ransom

Tracie N. Ransom serves as the Assistant Dean for Community, Engagement & Opportunity at Tulane Law School.  She leverages more than two decades of experience in the practice of law and the advancement of principles that build welcoming communities, equip lawyers and law students with skills to effectively engage across difference and foster opportunities for all to succeed and thrive in their careers. 

Ransom practiced complex litigation for just under a decade with AmLaw 200-firm Porter Wright in Columbus, Ohio, first as an associate and later as the first Black woman to be elected partner.  She then left private practice to go in-house as Associate General Counsel and Director of Complaints for Edward Jones, a Fortune 500 investment and financial advisory firm headquartered in St. Louis.  She also brings substantial experience and familiarity with higher education, having taught courses and led intensive workshops for the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University and as a former Adjunct Professor at Washburn University School of Law. 

Dean Ransom has long been a champion of opportunity within higher education and our society.  As a law student, she chaired BLSA’s Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Committee and assisted administrators at the University of Illinois College of Law with programming in celebration of the same. Ten years later, she presented at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law’s “Brown at 60” Symposium, sharing insights regarding the spirit of Brown, its purpose and the progress made as a nation, the existing legal and political landscape and the future of educational access and opportunity for all.  She also previously served on a pro bono basis as Counsel of Record for a national Coalition of Black Male Achievement Initiatives in Fisher v. University of Texas, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2012 term.  She assisted with the preparation of amicus briefs filed in the case at the Supreme Court and on remand to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Ransom’s expertise and leadership in advancing these principles have been nationally recognized, including through her appointment to and nearly seven-year service on the Board of Directors for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, among other boards and commissions, as well as through her frequent invitations to serve as keynote speaker or workshop facilitator at multiple national conferences. 

 An honors graduate of the University of Alabama and the University of Illinois College of Law, she clerked for the Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Honorable James L. Graham of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.