Oscar Hallam’s tenure as a dean is the longest in the history of William Mitchell College of Law and its predecessor schools. A faculty member when St. Paul College of Law was established in 1900, he became dean after George L. Bunn’s death in 1918. Soon after, the college moved from downtown St. Paul to the Berkey mansion at Sixth Street and College Avenue. There it remained until the 1956 merger of the schools that formed William Mitchell College of Law.
Born in Wisconsin in 1865, Hallam received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Like George Bunn, Hallam was a Ramsey County District Court judge before becoming an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. He served on the district court from 1905 to 1913 and on the state Supreme Court from 1913 to 1924, when he resigned to run for the U.S. Senate. Following that unsuccessful bid he returned to private practice. Hallam was president of the Ramsey County Bar Association and vice-chairman of the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education.