Garry Jenkins
- Former Dean
Degrees
- Haverford College, B.A.
- Harvard University, M.P.P.
- Harvard University, J.D.
Expertise
- Business Law
- Corporate Governance
- Law & Leadership
- Nonprofit Organizations
Garry W. Jenkins was the dean and William S. Pattee Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School from 2016-2023. Prior to assuming his post as the Law School’s 11th dean, he was associate dean for academic affairs and John C. Elam/Vorys Sater Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where he was also director of the Program on Law and Leadership, a leadership education and development initiative that he co-founded.
Dean Jenkins’s research and teaching interests are in law and philanthropy, leadership studies, corporate governance, and civil rights law. His scholarly articles have been published in leading law reviews and interdisciplinary journals. He has received honors and awards for both his academic scholarship (including recognition in three different subfields: nonprofit law, global justice, and corporate law) and his administrative academic leadership.
Before entering academia, Jenkins was chief operating officer and general counsel of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, a $200 million-plus international corporate foundation. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he was an attorney with the New York law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where he counseled public charities and private foundations, formed and advised private investment funds, and negotiated mergers and acquisitions.
He earned a B.A. from Haverford College, a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Upon graduation, he clerked for Judge Timothy K. Lewis of the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
Dean Jenkins sits on the governing boards of Haverford College, the Law School Admission Council, the National Women’s Law Center, Equal Justice Works, and the Guthrie Theater. He also chairs the deans’ steering committee of the Association of American Law Schools. By gubernatorial appointment, he currently serves as one of Minnesota’s commissioners to the Uniform Law Commission.