Amy Timmer

I retired in 2024 as full time faculty member and Associate Dean of Students for Cooley Law School. As a distinguished faculty emerita, I continue to serve the school as a Commissioner of the State Bar of Michigan’s Commission on Lawyer Well-Being.  I also continue as the Director of the National Legal Mentoring Consortium, which Cooley Law School proudly supports.

I am personally and professionally committed to lawyer and law student mentoring and professionalism. I am a founding member of, and continue to serve as a Board member and Director of the National Legal Mentoring Consortium, which is housed at Cooley Law School. I was appointed by two ABA presidents to serve as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism from 2014-18. At the state level, I served for decades as a member of the State Bar of Michigan District E Character and Fitness Committee, and as a panelist for the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board. I was also a Master and Board member of the American Inns of Court Mid-Michigan Chapter. I remain involved with the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility and the National Professionalism Consortium.

I have published books and articles on law student professionalism and have spoken at national programs offered by the ABA, the American Association of Law Schools, NALP, the Nelson Mullins Center on Professionalism, the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism, the Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, the Council of Bar Admissions Administrators, the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, the National Legal Mentoring Consortium, and the National Conference of Bar Executives.

I joined the Cooley faculty in 1992, teaching Torts and Equity & Remedies, and have been honored by the graduating class for my teaching through the Stanley E. Beattie Teaching Award. In 1996, I became the Associate Dean of Students, and in 2000, the Associate Dean of Students and Professionalism. I was named Interim Dean from October 2018 to July 2019, and served as the Associate Dean of Students from then until retirement.

After graduating from James Madison College at Michigan State University in 1978, and enjoying a 10-year career with the Michigan Department of Commerce in the areas of economic development and environmental regulation, I attended Cooley Law School in the evenings, and graduated summa cum laude in 1988. I then joined the law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn and practiced in the litigation department. I was admitted to practice in Michigan courts, the Eastern and Western Districts of the U.S. District Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Articles (Law Reviews and Law Journals)

• Eileen S. Johnson, Amy Timmer, Dawn E. Chandler, & Charles R. Toy, Matched vs. Episodic Mentoring: An Exploration of the Processes and Outcomes for Law School Students Engaged in Professional Mentoring,  23 Legal Educ. Rev. 153 (2013). 
• Amy Timmer, Interference With Prospective Contractual Relations: A Tort Only A Mind Reader Could Plead in the Michigan Courts, 45 Wayne L. Rev. 1443 (1999).
• Amy Timmer, Are They Lying Now or Were They Lying Then? The Insurance Industry’s Ambiguous Pollution Exclusion: Why the Insurer, and Not the Innocent Insured, Should Pay for Pollution Caused by Prior Landowners, 46 Baylor L. Rev. 355 (1994).
• Amy Timmer, You Can’t Make Me Tell—Or Can You? Can Observing Mentee- and Mentor-Lawyers Be Compelled to Testify About Confidential Client Information?, 24 Prof. Law. 68 (2017).

Books & Book Chapters

• Amy Timmer & Matt Cristiano, 60-Minute Mentoring For Lawyers and Law Students:  Small Commitments Big Results, (Attorney At Work 2018).
• Lori L. Keating & Amy Timmer, "Mentoring:  No App for That"  in The Relevant Lawyer - Reimagining the Future of the Legal Profession", edited by Paul A. Haskins, 231-244 (ABA Publishing 2015).
• Matthew Cristiano and Amy Timmer, Innovative Mentoring for Lawyers and Law Students:  Maximizing Relationships to Become a Successful Lawyer, (Thomson Reuters 2012).
• Amy Timmer and Nelson Miller, eds., Reflections of a Lawyer's Soul:  The Institutional Experience of Professionalism at Thomas M. Cooley Law School (Wm. S. Hein 2008).
• Amy Timmer, "The Professionalism Plan", in Reflections of a Lawyer's Soul: The Institutional Experience of Professionalism at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, edited by Amy Timmer & Nelson Miller, 13-64 (William S. Hein 2008).
• Heather Spielmaker & Amy Timmer, "The Professionalism Portfolio", in Reflections of a Lawyer's Soul:  The Institutional Experience of Professionalism at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, edited by Amy Timmer & Nelson Miller, 291-314 (William S. Hein 2008).
• Amy Timmer, et al., Winning Again:  A Citizen's Action Agenda (1996 Michigan Agenda Project).

Short Works

• Cooley Law School Professionalism Plan: The Second Decade. (The Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2014).
• Amy Timmer, The Power of Two: Law School and Bar Collaborations, Mich. B.J., Nov. 2010 at 58.
•  Amy Timmer and John Berry, The ABA’s Excellent and Inevitable Journey to Incorporating Professionalism in Law School Accreditation Standards, 20 Prof. Law. 1 (2010).  
• Amy Timmer and Heather Rae Spielmaker, Thomas M. Law School Professionalism Portfolio Project, 3 PROFile Spring/Summer 2007, at 2.
• Amy Timmer, ed. Creating a Culture of Professionalism in Law School:  The Thomas M. Cooley Law School Experience.  The Thomas M. Cooley Law School (2005).

Presentations

• David Jaffe, Larry Dubin, Amy Timmer, Tish Vincent, and Diane Van Aken, Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs Panel on Best Practices Engaging Law Schools, 21 AM. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 609 (2013).
• Amy Timmer & Paul Zelenski, The Challenge: Providing 'Principled Administration' to Higher Education Institutions in Today's World, Paper presented at the Higher Learning Commission's 112th Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL April, 2007.