Meet the Interim Dean

Jerome M. Organ began his term as interim dean at the School of Law on June 25, 2026.

A native of Wisconsin, Organ graduated magna cum laude from Miami University and attended Vanderbilt University School of Law as a Patrick Wilson Scholar. At Vanderbilt, Organ served as an editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review and graduated as a member of the Order of the Coif. After clerking for Justice William G. Callow of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Organ entered private practice with Foley & Lardner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Organ practiced law for five years, predominantly in the environmental law area.

In 1991, Organ left Foley & Lardner to join the faculty of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, where he taught property, environmental law, regulation of hazardous substances, land use controls, and client interviewing and counseling. In 2001, Organ became one of the founding faculty members here at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. He has earned a reputation as a gifted classroom teacher who cares deeply about his students, receiving a Gold Chalk Award at Missouri in 2001 and a Mission Award for Professional Preparation in 2005 and the Dean's Award for Teaching in 2010 here at the University of St. Thomas.

Organ believes profoundly in the importance of integrating the skills and values of the profession into the doctrinal classroom and in instilling in students an appreciation of the vocation of being a lawyer. Organ is coauthor of Property and Lawyering, a casebook for first year property that integrates lawyering skills and dispute resolution materials. This text and course received the 2003 CPR Institute of Dispute Resolution Award for Problem-Solving in the Law School.

Organ's scholarship initially focused on environmental law; in particular, on developing more efficient means of resolving environmental disputes and on considering questions of the appropriate locus for environmental regulation - that is, the balance of authority in environmental matters as between the federal government and state and local governments. Over the last two decades, he has written extensively about trends in legal education and about aspect of professional identity formation. He has recently co-authored two books, Interviewing and Counseling in the Prospective Client Consultation, (CALI, with Barbara Glesner Fines) and Lawyers, Clients, and Moral Responsibility (3d Edition, West Academic, with Robert F. Cochran, Jr. and Thomas L. Shaffer).

With a profound focus on law student well-being Organ also has been a principal co-investigator on the 2014 Survey of Law Student Well Being and the 2021 Survey of Law Student Well Being, the only multi-school surveys addressing substance use, mental health, and help-seeking behaviors among law students.

Prior to being named Interim Dean, Organ spent the last decade working closely with Neil Hamilton as Co-director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions shepherding the effort to make professional identity formation a more integral aspect of legal education across the country.