Giving Spotlight: Lexy and Samuel S. Lionel ’40, ’10HON

GIVING SPOTLIGHT

LEXY AND SAMUEL S. LIONEL ’40, ’10HON Make a Major Gift to Support Experiential Learning

With a $1 million gift, alumnus Sam Lionel and his wife, Lexy, will help St. John’s Law students gain practical experience and make professional connections as participants in the Law School’s popular externship program. To honor their tremendous generosity and legacy, going forward, the offering will be called the Lexy and Samuel S. Lionel ’40, ’10HON Externship Program.

Each semester, St. John’s Law students go into the field to work in externship placements across a range of practice settings, including legal services providers, private law firms, corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and judicial chambers. Under the supervision of an assigned mentor attorney, they handle real client matters and build their legal knowledge and skills hands on. To complement their real-world learning, the externs take a weekly seminar course where they reflect on their fieldwork and engage in activities and assignments that reinforce it.

Externships offer students an unrivaled opportunity to learn what it means to be a lawyer. It’s a vocation that the 103-year-old Sam Lionel pursued to its heights for over 80 years. New York City born and raised, he was just 21 when he graduated from St. John’s Law. After earning five battle stars for his U.S. military service during WWII, Lionel was in private practice in New York for several years before returning to the military as a judge advocate general. Later, he worked at the Pentagon and as a faculty member in West Point’s Department of Law.

Heeding the call to go west, Lionel settled in Las Vegas just as tourists flocked to play the tables and see the headliners at the Sahara, the Sands, and the Riviera. He eventually joined forces with former Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer to form Lionel Sawyer & Collins. The law firm grew to become a state powerhouse, expanding into Reno and Carson City, and working with numerous clients at the vanguard of the gaming and hospitality industries.

Over the years, Lionel guided the firm’s success, and became widely known as the unofficial dean of the Nevada Bar. He also accrued professional honors for his expertise in litigation and corporate law, including annual recognition in Best Lawyers. He was named a fellow of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers, and served as a member and chairman of Nevada’s Board of Bar Examiners. Lionel retired from the full-time practice of law in 2019, when he turned 100.

Through the years, he remained a proud and loyal St. John’s Law alumnus. In recognition of his steadfast commitment to alma mater, St. John’s awarded Lionel an honorary doctorate in 2010 as well as its highest accolade, the Medal of Honor. Now, his impact deepens as he and his wife support experiential learning at the Law School. “The Lionel Externship Program is designed to touch many lives and open opportunities for students,” says Lexy Lionel, as Sam Lionel adds, “We’re optimistic the students will do well!”

Dean Michael A. Simons shares Lionel’s outlook. “Sam is an icon of the Las Vegas bar, and his service to his clients, and the results he achieved for them, are legendary,” he says. “It’s always fun and inspiring to meet with him and Lexy on my trips out west. I’m grateful for their constant generosity, and their gift now to establish our Lionel Externship Program will be transformational. As it carries his name, the program will carry on Sam’s legacy as a consummate practitioner and dedicated alumnus to benefit generations of St. John’s Law students.”