Background

Jim Sandman has had a long and varied career as a lawyer in private practice with a big law firm, as a government lawyer, as a public interest lawyer, as a bar leader, and as a law professor. 

Jim is President Emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation, the United States’ largest funder of civil legal aid programs. He served as President of LSC from 2011 to 2020. He practiced for 30 years with the international, Washington-based law firm of Arnold & Porter and served as the firm’s Managing Partner for a decade. He is a former General Counsel of the District of Columbia Public Schools and a past President of the 124,000-member District of Columbia Bar. From 2020 to 2026, he was Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Teaching and Service to Students
Jim’s teaching focuses on legal ethics, professional formation, access to justice, artificial intelligence, and leadership. He serves as a mentor to law students and works with the Office of Career and Professional Development to provide career counseling.
Current Professional Activities

Jim is Chair of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission, by appointment of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. He is Chair of the Executive Committee and the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, Chair of the National Leadership Council of Frontline Justice, and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Albany Law School. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board, the Faculty Advisory Council of TEDLaw, and the boards of directors of the Pro Bono Institute and the Whitman-Walker Foundation. 

Awards and Professional Recognition
Jim is a recipient of American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named one of the “90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years” by Legal Times. The University of Pennsylvania Law School has honored him with its Alumni Award of Merit and its Howard Lesnick Pro Bono Award. He has also received the American Bar Association’s Presidential Citation; the District of Columbia Bar’s highest honor, the Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Award; the Distinguished Life Fellow Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation; Legal Services NYC’s Visionary Leadership Award; the Wiley A. Branton Award from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Legal Rights and Urban Affairs; the Pioneer of Justice Award from the Neighborhood Legal Services Program of Washington, D.C.; the Hugh A. Johnson, Jr. Memorial Award from the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia; the D.C. Commission on Human Rights’ Cornelius R. Alexander Humanitarian Award; the Washington Council of Lawyers’ Presidents’ Award; the Council for Court’s Excellence’s Justice Potter Steward Award; and the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland's Louis Stokes Paragon Award. 
Jim chaired the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Legal Issues Arising from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and was a Vice Chair of the ABA’s Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence.

He has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by the College of Saint Rose and honorary Doctor of Laws degrees by Albany Law School and Wilkes University. He has received Villanova University’s Medallion Award. He has given commencement addresses at Villanova Law School, Rutgers Law School, Albany Law School, the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, the College of Saint Rose, and Wilkes University.

Clerkship
Jim began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Max Rosenn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, his most important mentor and role model as a lawyer.

Education
Jim is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College, where he majored in History and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is a cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. 

Education

• J.D., University of Pennsylvania
• B.A., Boston College