Judge Andre Davis (retired)

Judge Andre Davis (retired) received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D., with honors, from the University of Maryland School of Law. Upon graduation from law school, he completed one-year clerkships on the U.S. District Court in Baltimore and on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Thereafter, he served as an appellate attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, where he handled both civil and criminal cases. He later was in private practice and, from 1984 until 1987, he was an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law. Since 1994, he has been a member of the volunteer faculty of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, where he also served as a member of, and for a one-year term, chair of the faculty council. He is a frequent lecturer on aspects of civil and criminal practice for legal and judicial education and training entities.

During a thirty-year judicial career starting in 1987, Davis served as an Associate Judge on the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City; as an Associate Judge on the Circuit Court for Baltimore City; as federal district judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland; and as a federal appellate judge on the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Davis has been active in numerous national and international judicial and legal education and Rule of Law training programs, including the Einstein Institute for Science, Health and the Courts; the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience; and the Federal Judicial Center.  Concomitantly, he’s had a lifelong interest in the healthy development and well-being of young people, as reflected in his leadership roles in Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central Maryland, the Baltimore Urban Debate League, and the youth leadership group Community Law in Action (“CLIA”).

In September 2017, Davis retired fully from service as a judge to become City Solicitor, as Head of the Law Department, of Baltimore. There, he managed a department of approximately 110, including 70 lawyers who represent the City in all civil legal matters.  In his role as counsel to the Baltimore City Police Department, he was at the forefront of the City’s implementation of the federal court consent decree requiring broad policing reforms. 

He retired as City Solicitor in February 2020.