Stephen S. Dunham

As vice president and general counsel for Penn State, Stephen S. Dunham leads a team of attorneys in providing legal advice and representation to the Board of Trustees, the President, and other administrators in their capacity as agents conducting University business.

Professor Dunham received his B.A. from Princeton University in 1966 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1969, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal and graduated Order of the Coif.

Following his graduation from law school, Professor Dunham served as a law clerk to United States District Court Judge Stanley A. Weigel in San Francisco and taught as a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and in Taiwan.  In 1972, Professor Dunham joined Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, where his practice focused on commercial litigation. He became a partner in 1976. In 1979, Professor Dunham joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School, where he taught courses in contracts, trial practice, complex litigation, and higher education law. From 1982 to 1988, Professor Dunham was also general counsel of the university (vice president and general counsel from 1985 to 1988).

Professor Dunham returned to Morrison & Foerster as a litigation partner in the Denver office in 1988. In addition to his litigation and counseling practice, Professor Dunham served as a firm-wide managing partner of Morrison & Foerster from 1990 to 1992, and as chair of the firm from 1996 to 2000.

From December 2005 until July 2012, Professor Dunham served as vice president and general counsel of The Johns Hopkins University. He was appointed vice president and general counsel at Penn State in July 2012.

Professor Dunham is a member of the California, Minnesota, and Colorado bars (inactive), the Maryland Bar, and the Pennsylvania Bar (Limited In-House Counsel License). He has taught courses in Professional Responsibility and Federal Jurisdiction at the University of Denver College of Law. He has been chair of the California State Bar Special Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services, a member of the board of directors and a fellow of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, co-chair of the San Francisco Bar Association Committee on Quality of Life, a member of the California State Bar Committee on Women in the Law, a member of the board of directors and chair of the Executive Committee of the Colorado Lawyers’ Committee, a member of the American Law Institute, a member of the board of directors of the American Judicature Society, a member of the board of visitors for J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, a member of the board of trustees for Mills College (1994-2003), chair of the board of trustees for Soka University of America, a member of the ALI-ABA Committee on Continuing Professional Education, and an instructor at various state and national programs of continuing legal education.