New university General Counsel named

COLUMBUS – President Karen Holbrook today announced the appointment Christopher M. Culley to General Counsel for The Ohio State University, where he had been serving as interim general counsel since October. The appointment was approved today (12/3) by the university Board of Trustees and is effective immediately.

As general counsel, Culley is Ohio State’s chief legal officer and responsible for providing legal advice to the Board of Trustees, the president, and university officers and administrators as well as supervising all legal work on behalf of the university through the Office of Legal Affairs. Legal Affairs has a staff of 15 attorneys, paralegals and associates.

As a public university, Ohio State is represented legally by both its own counsel and the state attorney general\'s office. Culley will also be an assistant attorney general for the state of Ohio, coordinating assignments with the attorney general’s staff as well as the university’s internal and external counsel.

Culley joined Ohio State as deputy general counsel in February 1998. In that position he was primarily responsible for supervising litigation and working closely with the Education Section of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, where he had worked prior to joining the university. In the Attorney General’s office, he was the Education Section’s first chief and responsible for all legal matters involving Ohio’s public primary, secondary, and higher education clients, including the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Board of Regents. He also coordinated legal services provided by 31 university and college attorneys on-site at campuses across the state.

Culley earned his bachelor’s degree at The Ohio State University in 1976 and holds a law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law