President-Designate Lee Fisher

Baldwin Wallace University President-designate Lee Fisher, who begins his appointment at BW on July 1, 2025, has forged a diverse career spanning the public, private, nonprofit and academic sectors.

Fisher served 18 years in state-elected public office, including as Ohio Attorney General and Lt. Governor. He has worked as a law school dean and professor, member of a private college board of trustees, undergraduate teaching fellow, federal appellate law clerk, private attorney, CEO of two nonprofit organizations, public and private company board director, and nonprofit board director.

Higher Education Leadership

Fisher currently serves as the Dean and Joseph C. Hostetler-BakerHostetler Chair in Law at Cleveland State University College of Law (CSU Law).

When Fisher started as Dean in 2017, the Law College was running the largest deficit of all CSU colleges, and enrollment was at its lowest level in more than 50 years. Since then, enrollment has increased 96%, the largest percentage increase of any CSU college. The largest first-year class in 15 years enrolled in fall 2024, with academic credentials steadily increasing. The College of Law has run a healthy surplus for the past five years.

One of Fisher's signature initiatives at CSU was the creation of the P. Kelly Tompkins Leadership and Law Program and a Leadership Certificate, the first of its kind of any law school in the nation. He is past Chair of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Leadership Section, which focuses on the importance of teaching leadership in law schools.

As a member of CSU's Provost Council of Deans, Fisher chaired a number of high-level searches, including university provost, college of public affairs and education college dean, and business college dean. He served on CSU's Strategic Priorities Steering Committee and chaired several projects for CSU's President, including a review of the campus Police Department and the creation of a new Center for Civics, Culture, and Society. He wrote the concept paper that led to the creation of the CSU Beth Mooney Center for Transformative Leadership, where he serves as a senior advisor.

As Attorney General, Fisher served as legal counsel for all of Ohio's public universities. As Lt. Governor, he actively participated in the development of the University System of Ohio's 2007-10 Strategic Plan, and he worked with all of Ohio's research universities and institutions as Director of the Ohio Department of Development and Chair of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission.

During his tenure as President and CEO of CEOs for Cities, in partnership with the Kresge Foundation, Fisher directed the national $1 Million Talent Dividend Prize. Fifty-seven U.S. metropolitan regions competed to attain the greatest proportionate increase in the number of post-secondary college degrees over a four-year period.

Financial Management/Fundraising Leadership

Fisher has extensive management, budgeting, strategic planning and fundraising experience. He has managed budgets ranging from $12 million (CSU Law) to $1 billion (Ohio Department of Development) and teams ranging from 300 (Center for Families and Children) to 1,200 (Ohio Attorney General). He has served on the board audit committees for two public companies — OfficeMax and Rex American Resources.

As Attorney General, he served as the General Counsel for the State of Ohio, and he managed the largest law firm in Ohio — a team including 350 lawyers, 23 legal divisions, a $50 million budget and an average daily pending caseload of 40,000. He supervised the writing of over 300 formal legal opinions.

He led the development of the first-ever economic development strategic plan for the State of Ohio as well as comprehensive strategic plans for the Office of the Ohio Attorney General, Center for Families and Children (CFC), CEOs for Cities and CSU College of Law.

Fisher raised over $20 million during his political career. Under his leadership, the CFC tripled its annual revenue generation and completed the largest capital campaign in CFC history. He significantly increased fundraising at CEOs for Cities, securing major grants from national organizations such as the MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. He boosted fundraising by more than 100% at CSU College of Law, including securing a private $5 million gift.

In 2022, Fisher was inducted into the Cleveland Magazine Business Hall of Fame for his decades-long work on state, regional and local economic development.

Public Sector Leadership

Fisher served in elected public office for 18 years. He served as Ohio Attorney General, Ohio Lt. Governor, State Senator and State Representative.

He also served as Director, Ohio Department of Development; Chair, Ohio Third Frontier Commission; Chair, Ohio Economic Growth Council; Chair, Ohio Organized Crime Commission; and Chair, Clean Ohio Council.

Fisher is the author of 10 Ohio laws, including Ohio's Hate Crime, Crime Victims Assistance and Missing Children laws. After his first term, he was voted Outstanding Freshman Legislator by the members of the Ohio House and Senate. During the decade he served in the Ohio Legislature, he served as Chair of the Cuyahoga County Legislative Delegation, the largest delegation in the Ohio Legislature.

President Bill Clinton appointed Fisher as Chair of the National Commission on Crime Control and Prevention. He was a charter member of the Cleveland Community Police Commission and served as Special Transition Advisor on Ethics to Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb. He is Co-Chair with former Ohio Governor Bob Taft of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition's Ohio Advisory Board.

Education and Teaching Leadership

Fisher is a graduate of Oberlin College (1973) and served on the Oberlin College Board of Trustees for 12 years.

He earned his law degree from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Law (1976), where he was the first recipient of the School of Law's Distinguished Recent Graduate Award and was inducted into the School of Law's Society of Benchers. Fisher earned a Master of Nonprofit Organization (MNO) from the CWRU Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations (2004).

He is also a graduate of the CWRU Weatherhead School of Management's Professional Fellows Program and was a CWRU Presidential Fellow, teaching two undergraduate seminars on leadership, innovation and collaboration.

In addition to teaching both leadership and police reform at the CSU Law College, he also taught two first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary courses for graduate and undergraduate students — "Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion" and "The Middle East Conflict: Navigating Difficult Conversations and Finding Common Ground."

Legal Sector Leadership

After graduating from the CWRU School of Law, Fisher clerked for Judge Paul C. Weick of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

He added many years of experience in legal practice, most extensively with Cleveland-based Hahn Loeser as Of Counsel from 1978-90 and Partner from 1995-99. He practiced in the areas of antitrust, business litigation and legislative/government regulation. He is a Life Member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference and the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Eighth District Judicial Conference.

As Ohio Attorney General, Fisher was the first Ohio AG to personally argue cases before the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1992, in an ironic twist, he defended the constitutionality of Ohio's Hate Crime Law in the Ohio Supreme Court, the law that he authored years earlier as a State Senator.

Fisher serves on the board of the Marshall Project, which focuses on criminal justice reform, and is a past board member of the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation, the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and the Cleveland Legal Aid Society.

Thought Leadership

Throughout his career, Fisher has contributed his expertise and insights as a regular newspaper and magazine columnist, television and radio commentator, and public speaker, frequently focusing on the value of a college degree.

His national speaking engagements have included the National League of Cities Post-Secondary Success City Action Network, AVID/Citi Foundation "Leading the Way to College Success" National Conference, National Education Policy Institute conference, National Summit on Degree Completion, Lumina Foundation conference on Transforming Communities Through Higher Education, Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU), and the National Conference on "Closing the Skills Gap, among many others.

Fisher, the keynote speaker for BW's May 2025 Commencement Ceremony, has also been the commencement speaker at the University of Toledo; Ohio Northern University; CWRU Weatherhead School of Management; College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago; Cuyahoga Community College; Columbus State Community College; and University of Akron Law School.

At CSU Law, Fisher hosted the podcast "Living Justice, Living Leadership."