Tim Spofford is a senior staff attorney for the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.  In almost 25 years with the agency, he has worked in Washington DC, San Francisco, and for the past decade, in the Seattle office.  Mr. Spofford specializes in disability discrimination at the postsecondary and K-12 levels, but is also responsible for a wide variety of other civil rights issues falling within OCR's law enforcement responsibilities, including race, national origin, sex and age discrimination matters. In recent years, he has resolved discrimination complaints involving school districts, colleges and universities, and other institutions throughout the Seattle office's region, which extends from Montana to the Northern Marianas, and from Alaska to Nevada. He also provides technical support to students, parents, and educators regarding compliance with the federal statutes that OCR enforces, and has been a regular presenter at national and regional confernces of educators, disability service providers, and state officials.

In addition to his work as an OCR lawyer, Mr.Spofford leads or has led a number of OCR technology initiatives, including its intranet, its online discrimination complaint form system, and the team that designed and built OCR's electronic case management system, which it implemented in 2003. For several years he also managed OCR's Internet web content. A significant part of his daily work continues to involve collaboration with Education Department IT staff and contractors in supporting agency systems, and providing technical support to OCR colleagues throughout the country.

Early in his career, Mr. Spofford worked as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund, as a public defender in Oregon, and for prison law projects in Oregon and Maryland. In the early 1990s, he was an Assistive Technology Specialist and Instructor in the Disabilities Services office of Mt. Hood Community College. 

Tim is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts (1974) and Oregon (1977) (inactive). He received his JD from Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, following college in Washington state and Idaho.  He is a contributing member of the American Constitution Society, the American Civil Liberties Union, Move On, and other organizations that work for progressive change in the U.S. and abroad.

In past lives, he was a radioman in the U.S. Coast Guard, a Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management firefighter, a Boston cab driver, and a member of the National Ski Patrol.