About
Marianne Schimelfenig served as an in-house lawyer for public and private institutions of higher education for almost 30 years.
From 2008 until mid-April 2020, she served as General Counsel & Corporate Secretary for Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Before moving to Philadelphia, Marianne served for 10 years as the first General Counsel & Corporate Secretary for Saint Mary's College of California.
Prior to Saint Mary's, Marianne was a trial lawyer in the Office of General Counsel for the Regents of the University of California system and earlier in her legal career, was an equity partner in the trial department of the Portland, Oregon law firm of Spears, Lubersky (now Lane Powell). While attending law school, she worked as an intern for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and the Office of General Counsel for the Georgia Pacific Corporation. Prior to law school, she worked as Regulatory Affairs Specialist for the Clorox Corporation and was a Legislative Assistant for a member of the House of Representatives.
She has been actively involved in the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) for over 30 years, serving in 2010-2011 as its President and Chairperson of the NACUA Board of Directors. In 2016, she received the NACUA Distinguished Service Award that recognizes individuals who have given extraordinary service both to NACUA and to institutions of higher education over an extended prior of time. Among other NACUA volunteer positions, she served as Chairperson of the Committee on Nominations & Elections, the Committee on Honors & Awards and has been a speaker at NACUA, AGB, NACUBO, ACCU and other higher education related conferences. Marianne currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)(cacrep.org), which accredits master’s and doctoral degree programs in counseling and its specialties that are offered by colleges and universities in the United States and throughout the world and, also, on the Board of The Come to Believe Foundation, which assists higher education institutions in developing and launching a two-year college model that provides a pathway for underserved students to receive four-year degrees (Ctbnetwork.org).
In addition to Pennsylvania, Marianne is admitted to practice in California, New York, the District of Columbia and Oregon and before the Supreme Court of the United States. She is a member of the University of Pennsylvania Inn of Court, the Philadelphia Forum of Executive Women, serving on the Forum's Women in Leadership Committee and the Women's Nonprofit Leadership Initiative (wnli.org).
