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Will Crossley is the fifth president of The Piney Woods School.  In July 2014, he returned to Piney Woods as the first alumnus to serve in this capacity in the school’s 107-year history. 

Trained in both education and civil rights, in 2013 he was selected as a Senior Executive Service Appointee by the President of the United States.  In that capacity, Will served as Senior Advisor in the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.  Prior to his presidential appointment, Will was Chief Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, where his work included managing voting rights litigation on behalf of the national party.  Formerly, he was also a senior litigation attorney at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, during which he held a diverse portfolio of government investigations, white-collar defense, business litigation, and civil rights matters.

Earlier in his career, Will served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Honorable Julian Abele Cook, Jr., U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Michigan.  Immediately following law school, he was awarded the Barton Postgraduate Legal Fellowship at the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University School of Law.

He is a member of the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and is a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fratenity, Inc.

Will holds a Bachelor of Arts (with Honors) in Public Policy Studies from the University of Chicago, a Master of Education in School Administration, Planning and Social Policy from Harvard University, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law.  Before his legal career began, Will was a policy analyst in the Georgia Governor’s Office, an educational researcher, and an elementary school teacher.

Will is married to the former Monica Akuamoah, and they have two daughters, Kayla and Christin.