Meet the Honoree

Lee Fisher is the Dean and Joseph C. Hostetler-BakerHostetler Chair in Law at Cleveland State University College of Law (“CSU Law”). On July 1, 2025, he will be the 10th President of Baldwin Wallace University.

Lee served 18 years in state elected public office, including Ohio State Representative, State Senator, Attorney General, and Lt. Governor as well as Chair of the Ohio Organized Crime Commission and the Ohio Third Frontier Commission and Chair of the Cuyahoga County Legislative Delegation.

He has worked as a law school dean and professor, member of a private college board of trustees, undergraduate teaching fellow, director of a state government department and member of the Ohio Governor’s cabinet, federal appellate law clerk, private attorney, CEO of two nonprofit organizations, public and private company board director, nonprofit board director, newspaper and magazine columnist, television and radio commentator, and frequent public speaker.

Lee was appointed Interim Dean of CSU Law in June 2016 and Dean in May 2017. At that time, the Law College was running a deficit and enrollment was at its lowest level in over 50 years. Since then, enrollment has increased 96%, the largest enrollment percentage increase of any CSU College. In fall 2024, the Law College enrolled its largest first year class in 15 years and the academic credentials of first year students has steadily increased. CSU Law became one of the first law schools in the nation to launch a part-time online JD program. The College of Law has been running a healthy surplus for the past five years.

Over the past nine years, CSU Law has grown its programs, clinics and centers, including the launch of four new clinics: the Terry Gilbert Wrongful Conviction Clinic; the Pre-Trial Justice Clinic; the Pardon, Clemency, and Re-entry Clinic; and the David Braff Animal Law Clinic/Center.

One of Lee’s signature initiatives has been creating 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 teaches a law school course, Leadership Lessons of Highly Effective Lawyer-Leaders, hosts a podcast, Living Justice, Living Leadership, and writes a regular column about leadership in Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader Magazine. He is the immediate Past Chair of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Leadership Section which focuses on the importance of teaching leadership in law schools.

He also established the CSU College of Law Hall of Fame to recognize members of the CSU Law community who best exemplify the motto of “Learn Law. Live Justice.” This year will be the 8th Annual Hall of Fame Celebration.

Lee has chaired a number of high-level searches including university provost, business college dean, and college of public affairs and education dean. He served on the University Strategic Priorities Steering Committee, and has chaired several projects for Presidents of Cleveland State University including a review of the CSU 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 and serves as a senior advisor to the Center. In addition to teaching leadership and police reform at the Law College, he also has 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.

Lee earned his law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He was the first recipient of Case Law School’s Distinguished Recent Graduate Award, and was inducted into its Society of Benchers. After graduating, Lee clerked for Judge Paul C. Weick of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Lee has decades of experience in legal practice, most extensively with Cleveland-based Hahn Loeser as Of Counsel from 1978-1990 and Partner from 1995-1999. 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 6th Circuit Judicial Conference and the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Eighth District Judicial Conference.

He served as Ohio Attorney General and was the first Ohio AG to personally argue cases before the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th 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. As General Counsel for the State of Ohio, he managed the largest law firm in Ohio – a team of 1,200 professionals including 350 lawyers, 23 legal divisions, a $50 million budget, and an average daily caseload of 40,000 pending cases. He supervised the writing of over 300 formal legal opinions. As AG, Lee also served as legal counsel for all of Ohio’s public universities.

He is a past Board member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, Cleveland Legal Aid Society, and Ohio Access to Justice Foundation. He is a regular legal commentator for WKYC-TV3, the Cleveland NBC affiliate, and is a regular columnist for Community Leader, a publication of Cleveland Magazine.

Lee 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.

Lee is the author of ten Ohio laws, including Ohio’s Hate Crime Law, Crime Victims Assistance Law, and Missing Children Law. After his first term, Lee 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 Lee as Chair of the National Commission on Crime Control and Prevention. Lee was a charter member of the Cleveland Community Police Commission, and he 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.

Lee served as President and CEO of the Center for Families and Children in Cleveland from 1999-2006, one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the Midwest.

Lee also served as President and CEO of CEOs for Cities, a national network of mid-sized U.S. cities focused on innovation and economic growth, from 2011-2016. As President, Lee developed a strategic framework for revitalizing cities known as City Vitals. Under his leadership, Lee organized 15 national conferences and increased conference attendance and national membership by over 300%.

He is a former Senior Fellow at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs, and a former Urban Scholar at the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and the Great Cities Institute, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Lee is a graduate of a number of leadership education programs including Leadership Cleveland, the Center for Creative Leadership’s Leadership at the Peak Program: the Arbinger Institute Outward Mindset Workshop; Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management’s Professional Fellows Program, and Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation.

He was selected a Chase Public Leadership Fellow at Harvard’s Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government, and a Case Western Reserve University Presidential Fellow, teaching two undergraduate seminars on leadership, innovation, and collaboration. Lee is a frequent speaker at Leadership Cleveland programs and events. He has been a keynote speaker at the Leadership Cleveland Fall Retreat the past three years and has spoken at a Leadership Cleveland program in each of the past five decades.

In 2022, Dean Fisher was inducted in the Cleveland Magazine Business Hall of Fame for his decades-long work on state, regional, and local economic development. In 2019, Lee was named one of the 100 most powerful people in Cleveland by Cleveland Magazine, in an article “The Power 100,” the first law school dean to ever make the list. For the past four years, he been named to the Cleveland Magazine “Cleveland 500: Leaders, Doers, Visionaries, and Idea Generators Who Help Shape the City.”

Lee is a recipient of the American Constitution Society’s Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Service Award, and the Anti-Defamation League’s Jurisprudence Award. In 2021, Lee and his wife Peggy (immediate past President/CEO of the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio) received the highest award from the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Foundation, the Richard Pogue Award for Excellence in Community Leadership and Engagement, the first couple to receive the award.

Lee served as President and CEO of the Center for Families and Children in Cleveland from 1999-2006. He received Smart Business Magazine’s Nonprofit Executive of the Year and the Visionary in Business Award. He also received the Rev. Martin Luther King 50th Anniversary Fair Housing Leadership in Higher Education Award and the Nonprofit Leadership Award from the Case Western University Mandel School for Applied Social Sciences.

After his first term in the Ohio House of Representatives, Lee was voted Outstanding Freshman Legislator by the members of the Ohio House and Senate. He was the first recipient of Case Western Reserve Law School’s Distinguished Recent Graduate Award, and was inducted into its Society of Benchers.

Lee is a graduate of Shaker High School and an inaugural member of its Hall of Fame. He is a graduate of Oberlin College 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). He was the first recipient of the School of Law’s Distinguished Recent Graduate Award and was inducted in the School of Law’s Society of Benchers. He earned his Master of Nonprofit Organization (MNO) from the CWRU Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations (2004).

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

Lee is married to Peggy Zone Fisher, who served for 18 years as President and CEO of the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio until her retirement in August 2024. They have two children, Jason, an actor, host, and brand spokesman in Los Angeles, and Jessica, a graduate of the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work and a licensed social worker in Cleveland. They have a 7-year-old granddaughter, Violet Stanley Fisher, and a new grandson, Dylan, who live with their parents Jason and Katelyn Fisher in LA.