2006 Workshop of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism
SPEAKERS AND DISCUSSANTS

Doug Ashworth became Director of the State Bar of Georgia Transition Into Law Practice Program after several years of experience in both the public and private sectors. The Transition Into Law Practice Program (also known as the "Mentoring Program") provides professional guidance and counsel to assist beginning Georgia lawyers in acquiring the practical skills, judgment and professional values necessary to practice law. Prior to assuming his current position with the State Bar, he served on the legal staff of the Council of Superior Court Judges, assisting Judges and their staffs throughout Georgia with death penalty habeas corpus cases, indigent defense issues, continuing judicial education programs, and criminal and civil bench book preparation and revision. He previously maintained a general practice of law for several years, which included service as a City Attorney, County Attorney, School Board Attorney and his participation in 6 death penalty cases.

John T. Berry is Legal Division Director for the Florida Bar where he supervises lawyer regulation and the Professionalism Center of the Professionalism Commission of the Florida Supreme Court and Florida Bar. He is the immediate past chair of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism. In the 2001 he was awarded the American Bar Association's Michael Franck Award for achievement in lawyer ethics, professionalism and conduct. He is the former Executive Director, State Bar of Michigan and the former Director, Center of Professionalism – University of Florida College of Law.

Clark Cunningham is the W. Lee Burge Professor of Law & Ethics at the Georgia State University College of Law, where he teaches Professional Responsibility: Heroes & Villains, Criminal Justice Fieldwork & Law Reform, Judicial Power, and the Criminal Justice Clinic. Professor Cunningham is a widely cited expert on the lawyer-client relationship and currently directs the Effective Lawyer-Client Communication Project, an international collaboration of law teachers, lawyers and social scientists. He has also consulted around the world on reform in legal education. He is a member of the Chief Justice of Georgia's Commission on Professionalism and the Fulton County Justice Commission. He chairs the Selection Committee for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism, which is co-sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism and the Conference of Chief Justices. In 2004 he served as Co-Reporter to Georgia's Commission on Indigent Defense. He previously was a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis (1989-2002) and the University of Michigan (1987-89).

Donald R. (Dick) Donovan chairs the Georgia State Bar Committee on Professionalism and serves as a Mentor for the State Bar Transition into Law Practice Program. He is a partner in the law firm of Donovan, Chambers P.C. Douglasville, Georgia and is a certified mediator and aribtrator.

Avarita L. Hanson was chosen in April of 2006 by the Supreme Court of Georgia as the Executive Director of the Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism. At the time of her appointment she was an Associate Professor at Atlanta's John Marshall School of Law and served as its Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Before joining John Marshall, she headed special legal projects and was the executive director of the Health and Consumer Services Section in the Examining Boards Division of the Georgia Secretary of State's Office. She has served as an Associate Judge Pro Hac Vice for the Fulton County Juvenile Court and as Clerk to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. She has also served as the Pro Bono Project Director for the State Bar of Georgia and Georgia Legal Services Program. Prior to and between government positions, Ms. Hanson engaged in the private practice of law, starting as a civil litigator with the Houston office of the Fulbright & Jaworski law firm. She has received the Judge Barbara Harris Award for Community Service from the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys and John Marshall Law School-Atlanta named its chapter of the Black Law Students Association in her honor.

Tim Mahoney teaches business ethics in addition to traditional philosophy courses at Providence College in Rhode Island. Before receiving his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, he had earned a Masters in Management at Northwestern's Kellogg School and pursued successful careers in accounting and finance. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst. For the past seven years he has served on the American team of examiners for the Chartered Financial Analyst Examination, administered to over 100,000 investment professionals in 150 nations each year. In October 2006 he was an American delegate to a Vatican conference on "Corporate Social Responsibility and Catholic Social Thought."

Patrick Longan holds the William Augustus Bootle Chair in Ethics and Professionalism at Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law and is the Director of the Mercer Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and came to Mercer in 2000, after practicing law for seven years in Dallas, Texas and teaching at Stetson University College of Law for nine years. Professor Longan teaches legal ethics, professionalism, and related courses at the Law School. He also serves as a member of the Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism, as a member of the State Bar of Georgia's Standards of the Profession Committee, as an advisor to the State Bar of Georgia's Committee on Professionalism, and as Master and Administrator for the William A. Bootle Inn of Court in Macon. Professor Longan was the recipient of the 2005 National Award for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching Professionalism.

Ellwood F. (Ebb) Oakley, III is Associate Professor of Legal Studies in the Graduate Program at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, as well as an Adjunct Professor in the College of Law. He was a partner in an Atlanta law firm, where his practice focused on business and health care litigation. He has taught courses in Legal and Ethical Environment, Health Law, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Insurance Law, and Health Law. His research and writings focus is on business ethics and alternative dispute resolution. In addition to teaching, Professor Oakley is a senior member of Arbitration panels of the American Arbitration Association, American Health Lawyers Association, and the National Association of Securities Dealers.  

Steve Olson is Associate Director of the Southern Institute for Business & Professional Ethics, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. In 2006 he re-joined The Southern Institute, which he co-founded in 1992 and directed from 1992-1994. He founded the programs in Business and Professional Ethics at Emory University's Center for Ethics in Public Policy and the Professions (1994-1999) and taught ethics in the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Human and Natural Ecology. He was Instructor of Organization and Management at Emory's Roberto C. Goizueta School of Business from 1992-1999 and also served as Recorder for Emory's ground-breaking Henry R. Luce Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar (1992-1995). In 1999, he co-founded Generative Consulting, a leadership development and executive coaching consultancy. His clients regularly appear on Fortune magazine's list of the "100 Best Companies to Work For," including the #1 Best Place to Work in 1999, and have twice earned Training Magazine's "Editors Choice" for best training. He holds a Masters in Religion from Yale University, and will receive his Ph.D. in Ethics and Society from Emory University in 2007.

David N. Shearon serves as Executive Director for both the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization and The Tennessee Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection. He is also President of Form1.org, Inc., a not-for-profit entity formed by CLE sponsors and MCLE regulators to create a one-stop web-based application system for MCLE accreditation of CLE courses. In addition to a law degree he holds a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jim O. Stuckey II chairs the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism. He is a shareholder at the law firm of Littler Mendelson, P.C. He is a former member of the University of South Carolina Board of Visitors and served as Chief Counsel to the Governor of South Carolina.

Robert M. Wilcox is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he has taught professional responsibility, property law, and trusts and estates since 1986. He is a member of the South Carolina Chief Justice's Commission on the Profession and director of the Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough Center on Professionalism at USC. He is also a former chair of the South Carolina Bar Ethics Advisory Committee and is the author or editor of several books on legal ethics including the Annotated South Carolina Rules of Professional Conduct, which is co-authored with Professor Nathan Crystal. He practiced law with the firm of Dow, Lohnes & Albertson in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta prior to returning to joining the faculty at the University of South Carolina.