About Eleanor
Eleanor Lumsden graduated from Princeton University in 1998 with an A.B. in Politics and earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2002. Her academic path returned to the classroom years later when she became an FCT Research Fellow and a PhD candidate in Law & Technology at NOVA School of Law in Lisbon in 2020. Those formal credentials frame a career that moves between practice, policy and the academy.
Her earliest professional role listed is Urban Expansion Program Director at The Junior Statesmen Foundation in 1998, a position she held before attending law school. After law school she joined Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe as an associate in 2003. Her legal work at a large firm gave way to roles that mixed development and institutional advancement; by 2006 she was Associate Director of Development for Reunion Giving at Stanford Law School.
In 2015 she launched Eleanor Lumsden Consulting, offering advisory services that draw on experience across nonprofit development, legal institutions and policy. Three years later she took a full-time academic post at Golden Gate University School of Law, where she is listed as Professor of Law beginning in 2018. Her teaching and scholarship intersect with contemporary questions about technology, regulation and access to legal systems.
Her research profile expanded through the FCT Research Fellowship at NOVA School of Law. The fellowship and ongoing doctoral work have involved examination of legal technology and regulatory responses, and they shaped subsequent teaching and consulting. She has also engaged with bar and civic organizations. She serves on the board of the Family Service Agency of San Francisco and has been part of the California State Bar’s Civil Justice Strategies Task Force in a past role.
Colleagues describe Lumsden as someone who moves easily between institutional settings. She has experience in private practice, higher-education administration, nonprofit governance and law school teaching. Her work often involves translating legal and technical issues for nonlegal audiences, whether fundraising teams, community organizations or law students.
She divides her time between teaching, doctoral research, and her consulting practice. Her current practice focuses on law and technology issues, nonprofit strategy and legal education reform.
