Lauren Schoenthaler, senior university counsel at Stanford University, has been appointed chief general counsel for University of the Pacific, officials announced today.

Schoenthaler joined Stanford’s Office of the General Counsel in 2001. She has regularly advised Stanford’s senior leaders, including president, provost, deans and senior executives. Over the course of her career, she has been the lead in-house attorney in many areas including risk management and litigation, copyright, compliance, privacy, student affairs, international issues, libraries and archives, and police matters.

She works collaboratively with faculty, students and staff and has served on many university-wide committees, including the IDEAL (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access in a Learning Environment) committee and the committee that developed the Stanford Student Conduct Charter of 2023. She also mentors Stanford Fellows to develop incoming legal talent. 

In 2016 Schoenthaler founded Institutional Equity and Access at Stanford, an umbrella group overseeing civil rights issues across the university. She served as senior associate vice provost in that role, leading a 20-person team. She returned to her role as senior university counsel in 2021.

Schoenthaler has authored a book chapter on Title IX and helped write Stanford’s policies on Title IX and sexual harassment, and privacy and access to electronic information. She advised the Stanford Board of Trustees on multiple matters, including Title IX and the university’s participation in the Google Book Search Project.

“We are delighted to welcome Lauren to the Pacific family,” said President Christopher Callahan. “She is an exceptional relationship-based leader who possesses precisely the kind of broad, deep and sophisticated higher education legal experiences we were seeking from a superb and highly complex university.”

Stanford University, ranked No. 2 in the nation by the Wall Street Journal and Washington Monthly and No. 3 by U.S. News & World Report, is an $8.2 billion enterprise with 17,000 students, 2,300 faculty, 17,000 staff, 36 NCAA Division I sports, 630 buildings on more than 8,000 acres in seven locations, 16 independent laboratories, centers and institutes, the Stanford University Medical Center, a U.S. Department of Energy accelerator lab, a marine station, biological preserve, $36 billion endowment and $1.8 billion annual research portfolio.

As Pacific’s chief legal strategist, Schoenthaler will be a direct report to the president and serve on the president’s cabinet, helping to protect the university while smartly moving the institution on a rapid trajectory fueled by innovation, entrepreneurial thinking and bold external partnerships.

“Lauren will be an essential leader in our journey to become the nation’s best student-centric comprehensive university,” the president said.

Greg Boardman, a member of Pacific’s Board of Regents, was Stanford’s vice provost for student affairs. In that role, he worked closely with Schoenthaler for nearly 14 years.

“I am beyond thrilled Lauren is joining the Pacific community,” Boardman said. “Her knowledge and breadth of experience will be a tremendous asset for us.”

Before joining Stanford, Schoenthaler served as deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County and was an associate attorney at Pillsbury Winthrop, specializing in antitrust, intellectual property and general litigation.

She started her legal career as a law clerk for Judge A. Wallace Tashima of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She is a 1995 magna cum laude graduate of UC Law in San Francisco, where she served as an editor of the law review, and Northwestern University, where she earned her B.A. in history in three years in 1991.

“It’s an honor to become part of the Pacific community,” Schoenthaler said. “From the moment I spoke with President Callahan about his vision for Pacific as a leading student-centered institution, I have been a believer. The faculty and staff are so passionate about serving students, and the campus and its facilities are stunning. While I will miss my amazing Stanford colleagues, I know that Pacific is where I’m meant to be.”

She starts Oct. 9.

Schoenthaler is the newest member of Pacific’s leadership team assembled by Callahan since he started as president three years ago after 15 years as dean and vice provost at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

In June, Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert, a top academic leader at Scripps College and biology professor at Scripps, Claremont McKenna College and Pitzer College, joined Pacific as provost and executive vice president. Earlier this year, Lee Skinner, dean of Newcomb-Tulane College at Tulane University and former associate dean at Claremont McKenna, joined Pacific as dean of the College of the Pacific, the university’s liberal arts and sciences school. Last month, Adam Tschuor, the No. 2 athletics executive at University of Dayton, started as Pacific’s new athletic director.

Last year, James Walsh, the No. 2 financial executive at Tufts University, joined Pacific as chief financial officer. Niraj Chaudhary was promoted to dean of the William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center. Suong Ives, chief human resources officer for Providence St. Joseph Health System and former HR chief at Clarkson University, was appointed Pacific’s first chief people officer. 

In 2021, UCLA Dean for Students Maria Q. Blandizzi was named vice president for student life. Liz Orwin, head of engineering at Harvey Mudd College, another one of the Claremont Colleges, was appointed dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science. Mary Lomax-Ghirarduzzi ’89, vice provost for diversity at the University of San Francisco, was appointed Pacific’s inaugural vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Earlier, Scott Biedermann ’05, ’20, was promoted to vice president for development and alumni relations. Christopher Ferguson, an enrollment strategist from Occidental College, was the first of the new president’s leadership hires when he was named Pacific’s vice president for enrollment strategy.

Pacific is California’s first and oldest university, founded in 1851. The university, with campuses in Stockton, Sacramento and San Francisco, is ranked as the No. 19 college in the West by The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education and in the Top 100 nationally.