Professor Spight is the Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Instruction and Interim Director of the Entrepreneurship & Nonprofit Clinic. Prior to Joining the University of Alabama School of Law faculty in 2023 he was the Policy Director at Alabama Appleseed where he oversaw the passage of legislation that provides relief to low-income Alabamians by enabling many to retain their driver’s licenses that would otherwise be suspended due to traffic tickets.
He came to Alabama to join Legal Services of Alabama as a part of its first cohort of John Lewis Fellows. While primarily practicing in public benefits law he also created the JLF Community Growth Project which aimed to focus on the legal needs of small businesses, nonprofits and other community centered organizations within Legal Services’ client demographic while also doing research and providing resources on payday lending. He successfully incorporated and advised several entities while forming partnerships with local organizations to aid low income and minority owned businesses in the Birmingham area. After the conclusion of his Fellowship, he transitioned roles to take over the Court Debt Project which focused on liberating indigent clients from fines and fees that were assessed as a result of criminal convictions throughout the state of Alabama. This led him to practice state-wide in Municipal, District and Circuit Courts.
This is Professor Spight’s second stint in education as he was a former social studies teacher and Mock Trial coach at Carter G. Woodson School in Winston-Salem, NC.
He graduated from Morehouse College, Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with a Bachelor of Arts in History and a concentration in Philosophy. He earned his J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law where he was an Executive Editor of the Wake Forest Journal of Law and Policy, member of BLSA, and a student clinician in the Community Law and Business Clinic.
He has studied human and civil rights law at the University of Vienna (Austria) where he had the opportunity to become a law clerk with the Chance for Children’s Foundation in Budapest, Hungary.