Currently the dean and Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law and Haslam Family Professor at the Winston College of Law at the University of Tennessee, Brown brings a track record of both leadership and scholarship to the role. He will begin in the role on Aug. 1.
Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. has been named the Kean Family Dean of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, Temple University announced Friday.
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Following a comprehensive national search, Lonnie T. Brown Jr. has been named the Kean Family Dean of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, the university announced Friday. Currently the dean and Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law and Haslam Family Professor at the Winston College of Law at the University of Tennessee, Brown brings a track record of both leadership and scholarship to the role. Brown will begin in the role on Aug. 1.
“The Beasley School of Law is one of Temple University’s strongest academic assets, and we are delighted to welcome Lonnie as its Kean Family Dean,” Temple President John Fry said. “This was a thorough and competitive search process, and Lonnie quickly emerged as the top candidate, given his extensive experience as both a leader and legal scholar. I know he will continue to build upon Beasley’s historic legacy of excellence and the school’s commitment to access, public service, academic excellence and impactful legal scholarship. I also am eager to work alongside him as we begin to implement our strategic plan, Forward with Purpose.”
Kristen Murray has been serving as interim Kean Family Dean since August 2025, while continuing her service as Beasley’s associate dean for academic affairs, a role she has held since 2022.
“Kristen has been a steady force in leading the Beasley School of Law over the last several months, and I am deeply grateful to her for her service. She will continue to serve as an important member of both the Temple and Beasley communities, and we are stronger as an institution because of that,” Fry added. “I also want to thank our search advisory committee and its chair, Dean Chip Hunter of the Fox School of Business, for their tireless work toward this important appointment.”
As the Kean Family Dean of Temple’s Law School, Brown will oversee a degree and program portfolio that includes Beasley’s juris doctor program, its seven master of law programs, a doctor of juridical science and three certificate programs. His appointment also comes at a time when Beasley has significant momentum as the institution just recently rose to No. 49 in the 2026 U.S. News and World Report’s Best Law School rankings.
Beasley’s overall performance is underscored by top-five rankings for Trial Advocacy (No. 2) and the part-time program (No. 4) and top-20 rankings for Healthcare Law (No. 12), Legal Writing (No. 16), and International Law (No. 17).
The Law School’s recent success goes beyond rankings, however. Both bar passage and employment outcomes have recently reached historic highs, underscoring the strength of Temple Law’s academic program and career preparation. Beasley routinely produces more new Pennsylvania lawyers than any other law school.
“I am deeply honored and humbled to have been selected as Kean Family Dean of the Beasley School of Law. The university and law school’s sincere commitment to student success, broad access, community engagement and overall excellence is palpable, and I could not be more excited about this amazing opportunity to contribute to those critically important objectives in the years ahead,” Brown said.
In his current role as dean of the Winston College of Law, Brown has worked to enhance the school and its reputation in several key areas, including academics, fundraising and research.
He was instrumental in the institution of a new first-year curriculum in the fall of 2025, and he led a successful effort to change the College of Law’s grading system. Under his watch, the college also enrolled the highest credentialed entering classes in its history every year since 2022.
Brown helped secure more than $64 million in gifts and pledges since 2022, including a naming gift of $32.5 million from The Bill Gatton Foundation in 2025, which is being used principally to fund a signature scholarship program, the Frank Winston Public Interest and Business Law Fellows.
He also played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Appalachian Justice Research Center, an innovative transdisciplinary collaboration operated jointly by the College of Law and the College of Arts and Sciences, which brings together scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines across campus (e.g., law, sociology, social work, health sciences, agriculture and architecture) to address longstanding justice-related challenges faced by citizens in the Appalachian and Mountain South regions .
“We are delighted that a leader and legal scholar of Lonnie’s stature will be the next dean of Beasley,” said interim Provost David Boardman. “I have no doubt that our law school, already a gem of Temple, will shine even more brightly in the years to come.”
Prior to leading the Winston College of Law, Brown spent 20 years at the University of Georgia School of Law, where he held the A. Gus Cleveland Distinguished Chair of Legal Ethics and Professionalism and was the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, the university’s highest honor for teaching excellence. From 2013 to 2015, he served as Georgia Law’s associate dean for academic affairs.
His scholarship and teaching focus on lawyering, legal ethics and judicial ethics. He is the author of the definitive biography of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark titled Defending the Public’s Enemy: The Life and Legacy of Ramsey Clark, and co-author of Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and has served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the American Inns of Court and the ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.
Before entering academia, he was an associate and partner with the law firm of Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta and served as a law clerk to the Honorable William C. O’Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Emory University, where he was a Robert W. Woodruff Scholar and recipient of the Marion Luther Brittain Award, Emory’s highest student honor. He earned his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was a Patrick Wilson Scholar editor-in-chief of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law.
