Walter F. Pratt, Jr. was born in 1946 and started his career as a Law Clerk for Judge Charles Clark, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1977–1978. He continued this path as the Law Clerk for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Supreme Court of the United States from 1978–1979. He changed paths in 1979 to become Assistant Professor of Law at the Duke University School of Law and was promoted to Associate Professor of Law at the Duke University School of Law in 1982. In 1986, Pratt became Associate Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School and was promoted again to Professor of Law at that institution in 1998 and served in that position until 2005. During this period in his career, he also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1991–1998 and as Executive Associate Dean from 1999–2005. He became a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina in 2005 and presided as Dean of the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2006–2011. Upon his retirement from this position, he was named the James P. Mozingo III Professor Emeritus of Legal Research in addition to being named a Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus.
He received his Bachelors of Arts from Vanderbilt University in 1968. He continued his education at Oxford University, completing his D.Phil. in 1974. He finished his law degree by earning a J.D. from Yale University in 1977.
Located in the Dean’s Suite hallway.