Jim Sandman is Distinguished Lecturer and Senior Consultant to the Future of the Profession Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. He is also President Emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation, the United States’ largest funder of civil legal aid programs. Jim was President of LSC from 2011 to 2020.

Jim practiced for 30 years with Arnold & Porter and was the firm’s Managing Partner for a decade.   During his time as Managing Partner, the firm was listed multiple times on Working Mother’s and Fortune’s lists of the 100 Best Companies to Work For and was honored eight times, a record, by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association for the firm’s commitment to improving diversity.  Jim has served as General Counsel of the District of Columbia Public Schools and is a past President of the 110,000-member District of Columbia Bar.

Jim is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System Vice Chair of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on the boards of the Pro Bono Institute and Albany Law School, among other organizations. He is a 2022 recipient of American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award and was named one of the 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years by Legal Times is 2008. The Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia has honored him as a Star of the Bar.

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