Jean Holloway graduated from Yale College with degrees in engineering and political science and received her J.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1984. After graduation, she clerked for Seventh Circuit Judge Luther M. Swygert. Holloway began practicing as a trial lawyer with Sidley & Austin in Chicago in 1986. She moved to Minnesota in 1990 to serve as a trial lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney, and then at Faegre & Benson.
Holloway became the dean of Hamline University School of Law in 2014. Realizing the effects of the downturn in law school enrollments nationally, she led efforts to achieve the agreement to combine Hamline and William Mitchell School of Law and implement plans for merging the two law schools. The merger agreement secured, Dean Emerita Holloway stepped away into corporate work. She is currently Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary for Artivion, a leading medical device company. In her career, she also served as general, divisional, deputy general counsel at C.R. Bard, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Guidant.