LISA KLOPPENBERG (JD 1987

School’s in for this alum

Lisa Kloppenberg (JD 1987) follows influence of Judge Dorothy Nelson to career in academia

Lisa Kloppenberg, right, with Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson, at the Conversation with the Deans panel in 2019 By Matthew Kredell Lisa Kloppenberg (BA 84, JD 1987) didn’t plan a career in academia when she enrolled at the USC Gould School of Law, but the seed was planted when she accepted a clerkship after graduation with U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson (LLM 1956), a former dean of the USC School of Law.

Nelson urged her clerks to seek careers in academia, and her influence led Kloppenberg first to mediation and alternative dispute resolution, and eventually, academia — as a professor, law school dean, provost and now acting president of Santa Clara University.

Kloppenberg is returning the favor by writing a biography on Nelson, to be published in the fall by Oxford University Press.

“I’m so honored and humbled to write her biography because she’s such a role model to people in education, on the bench and in conflict resolution,” Kloppenberg says. “She’s really known around the world.”

THE PATH TO ACADEMIA After clerking for Judge Nelson, Kloppenberg worked in litigation, arbitration and mediation with the firm Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler LLP in Washington, D.C., then with Ken Feinberg, a prominent mediator. After Kloppenberg earned tenure as a professor at the University of Oregon, Judge Nelson asked if she could put Kloppenberg’s name in a database for potential women law school deans being assembled at Georgetown Law Center. Kloppenberg became the youngest law school dean in the nation at the time when she was named dean at the University of Dayton (Ohio) School of Law at age 39.

She found her training in mediation beneficial for leading academic institutions.

“There’s a correlation between conflict resolution and teaching in every administrative job I’ve ever done,” Kloppenberg says. “I think a lot of it is really listening deeply to people, trying to solve problems, to help them solve their problems, and getting different groups together to find some common ground and build a path forward.”

TELLING JUDGE NELSON’S LIFE STORY After she became dean at Dayton, Kloppenberg decided to write Nelson’s biography, encouraged by her husband, Mark Zunich, whom she met while attending USC.

“We worked on it very gradually, and so many people at USC and on the Ninth Circuit were really generous to give me and Mark interviews,” Kloppenberg says. “Judge Nelson gave us tremendous access to a lot of materials. It is part of her life and one kind of perspective on her life, but you could write 10 books on what she did.”

Kloppenberg took over as dean of the law school at Santa Clara University in 2013, was named provost in 2020 and is currently serving as interim president.

Kloppenberg’s goals for the university center around increasing access and affordability, transparency, collaborative governance, robust communication, strengthening engagement with Silicon Valley and becoming an anti-racist institution.

“Judge Nelson always wanted me to be a college president,” Kloppenberg says. “She’s forceful in her gentle way. I just feel like I’m here to serve because I was called upon and I want to be helpful. Running a law school is a lot like running a small university.”