During the past five years, Dean Knight has helped lead the UW School of Law's continued growth and development as one of the premiere academic institutions in the country. A strong advocate for educational innovation and academic excellence, Dean Knight has provided administrative leadership for building and moving into a new home (William H. Gates Hall, 2003), undergoing a successful American Bar Association accreditation visit (2004), creating a new graduate program in intellectual property (2002), raising more than $60 million in gift funds for the school, and encouraging a funded interdisciplinary research agenda that has brought more than $4 million into the law school during the past two years. Dean Knight has also helped to recruit more than twenty new colleagues to join the law school faculty.

Before coming to the UW in 2001, Dean Knight was a law professor at the University of Iowa, he also served as that institution's Vice Provost from 1997-2000. An expert in commercial law, Knight has authored three books on the subject and taught courses in banking, contracts and commercial transactions. He has also taught seminars on international banking and critical race theory. Prior to becoming a faculty member, Knight worked in New York City as a labor lawyer and in Connecticut with a bank holding company.

He is an active member in several organizations, including the American Law Institute, the Law School Admissions Council, the American Law Deans Association, the Society of American Law Teachers, and both the American and National Bar Associations. He also serves as the Legal Affairs Committee Chair for the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company board of directors.