Thomas C. "Tom" Galligan Jr.

UNH School of Law Board of Trustees

President, Colby Sawyer College, New London, NH

Thomas C. “Tom” Galligan Jr. joined Colby-Sawyer College as its eighth president in August 2006. He previously served as dean and professor of law at the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville, Tenn., where he also taught torts and admiralty.

From 1986 until 1998, Galligan taught at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. At LSU, Galligan was named the Dr. Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law and was honored by the students as the Outstanding LSU Professor six times.

Galligan has published numerous books and articles on torts and admiralty. His scholarship has been cited in the proposed Restatement (Third) of Torts and by numerous legal scholars. It also has been cited by the United States Supreme Court and other federal and state appellate and trial courts. He has also testified on admiralty issues before committees of the U.S. House and Senate.

Galligan currently serves as co-chair of the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society Civics Education Task Force and is a commissioner for the New Hampshire Post-Secondary Education Commission.

He holds an A.B. from Stanford University, a J.D. from the University of Puget Sound (now Seattle University) School of Law and a L.L. M. from the Columbia University Law School.

Under Galligan’s leadership, Colby-Sawyer has continued its commitment to basing its core decisions on how students will benefit. Through college-wide collaboration and strategic planning, the college has experienced significant growth in enrollment, added new academic majors and minors, increased the size of the full-time faculty, and established the Colby-Sawyer College Athletics Hall of Fame. In 2010, following a successful matching-gift campaign, Colby-Sawyer constructed the new Windy Hill School, a LEED-certified laboratory school for the Early Childhood Education Program that offers preschool, kindergarten and after-school programs.

Galligan and his wife, Susan, have four children and live in New London.