Dean of Mitchell Hamline law school to step down in 2024

Pioneer Press
·2 min read

The dean of the Mitchell Hamline School of Law plans to step down when his contract expires in June 2024.

Anthony Niedwiecki, who has helmed the St. Paul law school since July 2020, said in a note to alumni on Monday that his decision was driven by the need to focus on his own well-being.

“My husband Waymon and I took stock recently when we celebrated our 20th anniversary, looking at the health issues we’ve both had in recent years as well as our quality of life,” Niedwiecki wrote. “I realized I love serving as president and dean but feel like the all-consuming focus it demands is no longer what’s best for my family and me.”

Niedwiecki, who informed the school’s faculty and staff of his decision last week, said he plans to return to Mitchell Hamline as a full-time professor after a sabbatical.

Reflecting on his tenure as dean thus far, Niedwiecki pointed to several notable accomplishments: doubling alumni giving, notching the best first-time bar passage rate since the Mitchell Hamline merger in 2015, diversifying the school’s faculty, student body and administration, and becoming the first law school in the U.S. to enroll incarcerated students.

Niedwiecki, who is Mitchell Hamline’s first openly LGBTQ dean, has spent 25 years in legal education. He came Mitchell Hamline from Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, where he had served as dean for three years.

After graduating from Tulane Law School in the mid-1990s, Niedwiecki spent three years at a Chicago law firm before going into teaching in 1998.

While teaching law in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he also served as city commissioner and vice mayor of Oakland Park, Fla. He founded Fight OUT Loud, a gay rights organization, in 2007.

Although the search for Niedwiecki’s successor has not yet begun, Mitchell Hamline’s board of trustees is currently working through the details of that process, a spokesman said.

Related Articles