LaVonda N. Reed, J.D., was appointed the seventh dean of Georgia State University College of Law effective July 1, 2021.

Prior to her appointment at Georgia State Law, Dean Reed served as professor of law and associate provost for faculty affairs at Syracuse University. In this position, she had oversight of research and administrative leaves, awards, promotion and tenure review, policy development and enforcement among other duties. She led initiatives to recruit and retain a diverse faculty and created the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence and the Center for Faculty Leadership and Professional Development, which helped further the work of Syracuse’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant designed to support women and underrepresented minority scholars in STEM disciplines.

Since joining Georgia State Law, Dean Reed has focused on five guiding principles—access to the profession; affordability of legal education; academic excellence in faculty scholarship, teaching, and career advancement; student and staff professional achievement; and active engagement of all stakeholders.  These principles serve to focus the Georgia State Law community of faculty, staff, and students on the mission of the college into the next 40 years and beyond.

Her research and teaching are in the areas of wills and trusts, property, and communications regulatory law and policy.

Prior to her appointment at Syracuse University, she was on the faculty of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. She also was a judicial clerk for the Honorable Donald W. VanArtsdalen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and practiced communications and corporate law with the international firm of Paul Hastings LLP.

Dean Reed earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Virginia.