Stephen S Dunham

Stephen S. Dunham joined Johns Hopkins in December 2005 as vice president and general counsel.

Dunham had been a partner in and is a former chairman of the global law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP. He has represented colleges and universities across a wide spectrum of legal issues, both as in-house lawyer and outside counsel. His experience includes matters as diverse as research issues, intellectual property, employment disputes, First Amendment issues, academic freedom, accreditation, ethics, and appointments and promotions.

Dunham, who has taught law students throughout most of his 36-year legal career, left private practice in 1979 to join the law faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School. He became general counsel of the university in 1982 and was vice president and general counsel from 1985 to 1988. He then joined the Denver office of Morrison & Foerster, the business and litigation firm in whose San Francisco office he had previously practiced. He served the firm as a managing partner from 1990 to 1992. He was chairman from 1996 to 2000.

Dunham, a native of Bloomington, Ind., graduated from Princeton University in 1966 and from Yale Law School in 1969. He served as clerk to a federal district judge and taught at the University of California, Davis, and in Taiwan before joining Morrison & Foerster for the first time in 1972.

Dunham has been a member of the board and a fellow of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, a director of the American Judicature Society, chair of the executive committee of the Colorado Lawyers' Committee, a member of the American Law Institute and a trustee of Mills College.

[Updated December 2005]