Professor

James

J.

Sandman

James J. Sandman is Distinguished Professor of Practice and Public Service at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. He is President Emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation and served as President of LSC from 2011 to 2020. He practiced law with Arnold & Porter for 30 years and served as the firm’s managing partner for a decade. He is a past president of the 124,000-member District of Columbia Bar and a former general counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School from 2020 to 2026.

Sandman is Chair of the Executive Committee and the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. He is Chair of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission (by appointment of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals) and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Albany Law School. He is a member of the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board and the board of directors of the Pro Bono Institute.

Sandman previously served as Chair of the American Bar Association's Task Force on Legal Issues Arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic  and as a Vice Chair of the ABA's Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence. He was a member of the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Services and its  Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service. He has chaired the Boards of the Meyer Foundation, Whitman-Walker Health, and the DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. He has served as a member of the boards of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the Neighborhood Legal Services Program of the District of Columbia, the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education, and Wilkes University. 

Sandman 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 Ameirican Bar Association's Presidential Citation, the District of Columbia Bar’s Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Award, the Wiley A. Branton Award from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Legal Rights and Urban Affairs, the Washington Council of Lawyers’ Presidents’ Award, the Council for Court’s Excellence’s Justice Potter Steward Award, Tahirih Justice Center’s Wings of Justice Award, and Legal Aid Society of Cleveland's Louis Stokes Paragon Award. He has been awarded honorary degrees by and given commencement addresses at the College of Saint Rose, Albany Law School, and Wilkes University.  He has received Villanova University’s Medallion Award and been the commencement speaker at Villanova Law School. He has also delivered commencement addresses at Rutgers Law School and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.

Sandman is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and received his law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as executive editor of the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Max Rosenn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.