Widener Law Harrisburg and its incoming dean, Christian A. Johnson, share an anniversary. Widener Law Harrisburg is celebrating the year-long silver anniversary of its founding with an event on April 18, the same day that Johnson is celebrating his 54th birthday.
A coincidence? Certainly, but maybe fate, as well.
Johnson, currently the Hugh B. Brown Presidential Endowed Chair in Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, was announced Friday as the first dean of the Widener University Commonwealth Law School effective July 1, the same day the Law School officially assumes its new moniker.
What does seem to be fate is Johnson’s legal career. He was born during his father’s third year of law school. “My father is a lawyer, one of my uncles was a lawyer, my father’s friends were lawyers. I’ve always been fascinated with the law since I was little,” Johnson said.
Johnson received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Utah, and worked at Price Waterhouse as a CPA for a couple of years, becoming a lawyer was always his goal, he says.
“I always believed that I would be a better lawyer if I understood accounting,” Johnson said. “I wanted to do business law and tax law. I was an accountant for a couple years and got some good training and then applied to law school. I quickly discovered that the 10 percent of what I liked about accounting, lawyers did 100 percent of the time.”
Johnson attended Columbia University School of Law where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and executive editor of the Columbia Law Review. After graduating from law school, he worked as an associate for law firms in New York, Las Vegas and Chicago, focusing primarily on tax law, finance, bank lending and derivatives.
After a few years of practice, Johnson decided to follow another passion – teaching.
Working for Mayer, Brown and Platt in Chicago at the time, Johnson moved two miles up the road to Loyola University School of Law. As a member of the faculty at Loyola, he rose through the ranks to professor, and served as faculty director of the Corporate Law Center. While at Loyola, he also served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
After 13 years at Loyola, Johnson, a Utah native, was drawn back to his home state, receiving a professorship at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney School of Law. He has served on the faculty since 2008, and was the associate dean of academic affairs from 2012 to 2014.
Johnson said he immediately perceived the opportunity at Widener Law Harrisburg as a good fit. He was attracted to the position by the collegial faculty, strong alumni base, and renowned programs in law and government and environmental law. 
“The opportunity at Widener is very unique because a very fine law school is already in place,” Johnson said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to help a fine faculty develop and strengthen the programs that they have, and the university is extremely supportive in helping the law school be successful. For someone who wants to be a dean, it is a very attractive situation.”