Douglas R. Heidenreich was only the second dean of William Mitchell College of Law and its predecessor schools to be born in Minnesota. Born in St. Paul, he received his law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in 1961. He was the second alumnus to be dean of any of the colleges that made up William Mitchell. (The first was John A. Burns, a 1904 graduate of St. Paul College of Law who headed that school from 1954 to 1956.) After a brief period in private practice, Heidenreich joined the faculty in 1963 as a professor and assistant dean under Dean Stephen R. Curtis. When Curtis left the school in 1964, Heidenreich became acting dean; a few months later he was named dean.
During his deanship, the student body and the faculty more than doubled. The college also began offering a summer session, a clinic program was initiated, and the first issue of the William Mitchell Law Review was published. Heidenreich remained on the faculty after stepping down as dean in 1975.