James Sandman

James J. Sandman is Distinguished Lecturer and Senior Consultant to the Future of the Profession Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He teaches Professional Responsibility. He is also President Emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation, the nation’s largest funder of civil legal aid programs for low-income people, supporting 132 independent programs with more than 850 offices serving every state and territory. He served as President of LSC from 2011 to February of 2020 and is the longest-serving President in LSC’s history.

Jim practiced with the international, Washington-based law firm of Arnold & Porter for 30 years and served as the firm’s Managing Partner for a decade. In 2007, he began a new career in public service, starting as General Counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools.

Jim is a past President of the 110,000-member District of Columbia Bar. He is currently Chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Legal Needs Arising Out of the 2020 Pandemic and served on the ABA’s Commission on the Future of Legal Services. He has received numerous awards, including a Presidential Citation from the American Bar Association, the University of Pennsylvania’s Alumni Award and its Howard Lesnick Pro Bono Award, and the District of Columbia Bar’s highest honor, the Justice William J. Brennan Award.

Jim is a cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif, and a summa cum laude of Boston College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He began his legal career as law clerk to Judge Max Rosenn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.