Donald Lewis, an accomplished attorney who served as dean of Hamline University School of Law from 2008 to 2013, recently retired from the Minneapolis firm he co-founded, Nilan Johnson Lewis. The 70-year-old has shifted to part time arbitration and mediation work with JAMS, a private company that provides alternative dispute resolution services.
Lewis’s tenure at Hamline Law was almost a career midpoint, sandwiched between stints in private practice. While he was serving on the William Mitchell board of trustees in 2007, he became interested in leading an academic environment. A year later, as he prepared to become dean at Hamline Law, the economy collapsed.
At Hamline Law, Lewis succeeded Jon Garon and served as dean for five years. His work changed the face of the school, improving national rankings and placing it in the top five for “best value” in National Jurist magazine. Providing access and helping ensure students were equipped with tools and skills that would help them following law school provoked changes to the curriculum. Some classwork included helping students develop skills to build their own profitable law practices following law school.
“I made it a major focus of my administration of law school to do everything I could to enhance the career opportunities that students would have,” said Lewis.
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