 He graduated from the law school at South Carolina University and was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of South Carolina on December 20, 1876.When the university was closed in June 1877 by Wade Hampton III and the newly elected Democratic regime, Greener moved to Washington, D.C. and he was admitted to the Bar of the District of Columbia on April 14, 1877.In DC in 1877, he took a position as a professor in the Howard Law School.