The Legal Services Corporation was created by Congress in 1974 and continues to be the largest single funder of civil legal aid programs for low-income people in the United States. Jim Sandman has been President of the Legal Services Corporation since January of 2011. LSC supports 134 programs with more than 900 offices in every state and territory.
For thirty years, from 1977 to 2007, Mr. Sandman was with the international law firm of Arnold & Porter LLP. He served as the firm’s Managing Partner for ten of those years, from 1995 to 2005. Mr. Sandman’s practice at Arnold & Porter encompassed both litigation and counseling in product liability, risk management, antitrust, and employment matters. In 2007, Mr. Sandman retired from Arnold & Porter to pursue a new career in public service. He became General Counsel of the District of Columbia Public Schools under Chancellor Michelle Rhee and served in that position for three years.
Mr. Sandman is active in a variety of professional, charitable, and community organizations. He is a past President of the 93,000-member District of Columbia Bar. Mr. Sandman received the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Howard Lesnick Pro Bono Award in 2011, and in 2008 Legal Times named him one of the “90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years.”
He is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as Executive Editor of the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.