The College of William & Mary elected George Parker Scarburgh to the professorship of law in 1851, following the death of Nathaniel Beverley Tucker. Commitments on the Eastern Shore of Virginia meant he did not arrive in Williamsburg until the fall of the next year.

In 1852 Scarburgh received an honorary LL.D from William & Mary, but his time at the college was cut short when, in 1855, President Franklin Pierce appointed him to the U.S. Court of Claims. In 1861, just after Virginia seceded from the Union, he returned to Eastern Virginia and carried on the career he began before serving at William & Mary, working in private practice and on the bench until his death in 1879.