Jim Wheaton

About

Jim Wheaton will serve as Clinical Associate Professor of Law and as Director of the PELE (Parents Engaged for Learning Equality) Special Education Advocacy Clinic.

 Wheaton brings strong special education and disabilities-related experience to the Law School, having devoted the entirety of his legal pro bono efforts during his career to representing students and families in special education matters. He also served as a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights from 2013-16.

 Wheaton provided pro bono representation of national, Virginia statewide, and local disability rights organizations as amici curiae in Hartmann v. Loudoun County School Board. He was also appointed by Virginia Governor Mark Warner to serve as chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Virginia Public School Authority from 2002-08 and continued in that position under Governor Tim Kaine.

 As a parent member of the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads, Wheaton has also participated in that organization’s special education seminars. From 1997-2001, he served as Vice President and Board member of the Governor’s School for the Arts Foundation.

 A graduate of Wake Forest University (magna cum laude with honors in mathematical economics), Wheaton went earned his J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law where he was executive editor of the Virginia Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif. He later clerked for Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

 Wheaton’s legal practice focused on corporate and securities law. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and of the American College of LLC & Partnership Attorneys. He most recently served as a Clinical Associate Professor and Director of Boston University’s Startup Law Clinic. He also taught adjunct courses at William & Mary Law School and the University of Virginia Law School.