Peter R. Pitegoff (born March 6, 1953) is a law professor and former Dean of the University of Maine School of Law. The focus of his career has been in community-based economic development and legal education. Early life and education Peter Pitegoff is a 1975 graduate of Brown University and a 1981 graduate of New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden scholar. He was born in New York City, grew up in Roslyn, New York, and graduated from Roslyn High School in 1971. Early career Pitegoff began his career in the mid-1970s as a community organizer in rural North Carolina and in Oakland, California, following his undergraduate concentration in American civilization and teacher certification for secondary school social studies. After earning his J.D. degree, he served from 1981 to 1988 as general counsel for the ICA Group, a Massachusetts consulting firm that assists community economic development initiatives and worker-owned enterprises nationwide. While in law practice, he taught as an adjunct at New York University School of Law and at Harvard Law School. From 1988 to 2005, he was a law professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo School of Law. At SUNY, he served as vice dean for academic affairs and founded a clinical program in community economic development law, which has been a model for transactional clinics at other law schools. He helped coordinate an organized bar initiative to revise the New York Not-for-Profit Corporation Law and served on the New York State Chief Judge’s Judicial Institute on Professionalism in the Law. Maine Law Dean From 2005 to 2015, Pitegoff served as Dean of the University of Maine School of Law (“Maine Law”) in Portland, Maine, a position currently held by Leigh Saufley, former Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. As Dean, he worked with colleagues to expand Maine Law’s pivotal role in law, policy, economic development, and social justice in Maine and to achieve a higher profile for Maine Law on a national and global stage. He served from 2006-2016 on the board of directors of Coastal Enterprises, Inc., a national leader in community development finance. He served as co-chair of Maine’s Juvenile Justice Task Force, and as member of the Merit Selection Committee for the U.S. Magistrate Judge (District of Maine); the Advisory Committee on Legislative Ethics for the Maine House of Representatives; the Clinical Skills Committee