James “Jim” Sandman, a Renaissance Lawyer
By William Marmon
“I came late in my career to what I now [2022 at 70 years of age] feel was my life’s calling all along—improving access to justice to low income people in the United States,” says Jim Sandman in his Oral History.
This History recounts a remarkable and varied career, which went from ten years as Managing Partner at a major national law firm to a deep dive into the public sector. Sandman tells how he achieved that unusual breadth of lawyering at a high level, not by planning, but by staying alert to opportunities.
Sandman’s Oral History stretches over twelve interview sessions, with sessions 1-9 taken by Paras Shah, ending in 2010. After an eleven-year pause, and at the urging of the late Stephen Pollak, Sandman resumed in 2021with interviewer William Marmon for sessions 10-12.
In sessions 1-9 Sandman traces his birth in Albany, NY in 1951, through elementary and secondary parish schools in Albany, college at Boston College, and law school at University of Pennsylvania, followed by to a judicial clerkship with Third Circuit Judge Max Rosenn. Then came 30 years at Arnold & Porter, including ten years (1995-2005) as Managing Partner, during the firm’s rapid expansion, which included opening offices in London and Brussels. As a junior partner Sandman earlier set up the Firm office in Los Angeles. He served as president of the DC Bar (2006-2007). Shortly thereafter he left Arnold & Porter to join the DC School system and the legendary Michelle Rhee as General Counsel. Each segment is packed with fascinating insider perspective. For example, he describes the angst inside Arnold & Porter when a Silicon Valley firm jumped up the starting salary for first year associates to $125,000 in 2000 (in 2024 it’s $225,000), which Sandman resisted but ultimately followed out of competitive necessity.
In sessions 10-12, with interviewer Marmon, Sandman covers the nine years of his presidency of the Legal Services Corporation (2011-2020) and the beginning of his position at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He talks interestingly and feelingly about the need to expand legal services and make the legal system simpler and less expensive. He discusses the danger to American democracy caused by the existing polarity.
Influenced as a teenager by the idealism of the 1960s and his interest in civil rights advocacy, Sandman recounts how he had chosen law school in the first place with the notion of putting his talents toward public service. During his time at Arnold & Porter, Sandman actively supported and pushed pro bono work, and as president of the DC Bar, he notes as his proudest achievement the addition of 24 firms to the DC Bar Pro Bono Center’s Pro Bono Initiative program.
When Sandman took over the Legal Services Corporation, a congressionally created entity that funds legal services in civil cases to the indigent on a national basis, Sandman came face-to-face with the unequal distribution of legal services in America. In only 24 percent of civil cases in state courts are both sides represented by counsel. Lack of counsel is a huge disadvantage to the unrepresented party – a fact recognized by the Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright, which guaranteed legal counsel in criminal cases, but not civil (a distinction not widely understood by the general public, says Sandman).
Sandman discusses initiatives for reform of the legal profession which he believes must be made from the outside, not by lawyers alone, good intentions notwithstanding. He says, only half joking, that if left to lawyers, reforms would be limited to baby steps, such as translating Latin phrases in court forms. Sandman discusses his ideas and actions to achieve careful opening of aspects of the practice of law to non-lawyers, the way medicine has been opened to non-doctors, such as physicians assistants. He also favors simplifying legal processes. He cites the situation in New York, where at least until recently (2020), a person seeking an uncontested divorce needed to file up to 21 different forms, depending on the situation. Sandman also advocates reducing mandatory in-person attendance in the courtroom. He notes that in the 2021 Rule of Law Index, the U.S. was ranked 46/46, dead last, among the world’s wealthiest countries for the affordability and accessibility of civil justice.
Sandman talks enthusiastically about his activities at U-Penn Law’s the Future of the Profession Initiative and about teaching courses at the Law School on Leadership and Professional Responsibility, where he is able to educate law students on the issue of unequal access to justice in America.
