Spring 2011 Workshop

Workshop Fellows

Bobbi Jo Boyd, Campbell University

Is an Assistant Professor at Campbell University’s Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law in Raleigh, North Carolina.  She teaches Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, a seminar on Advanced Legal Ethics, and Criminal Law.  She serves on the North Carolina State Bar Ethics Committee, helping to resolve formal ethics inquiries by interpreting existing rules to an evolving global legal marketplace.  Her most recent work for the committee addresses lawyer participation in barter exchange clubs, lawyer use of software as a service (SaaS), and the propriety of lawyers generating business through Internet companies such as Groupon, which leverage collective buying power.  Bobbi Jo has previously served on the North Carolina Bar Association’s Professionalism Committee, editing The Better Lawyer in 2007 and 2008.  As a teacher of ethics and professionalism, she is interested in integrating basic moral philosophy concepts in the classroom; developing successful use of the DIT-2 (Defining Issues Test) to measure change in law students’ moral reasoning skills; and exploring the use of project-based learning principles to effectively teach professional values.  Prior to joining Campbell Law in 2009, Bobbi Jo spent nine years at the University of North Carolina School of Law as the Deputy Director of the Legal Research, Reasoning, Writing, and Advocacy Program, where she helped develop the legal writing program.  She is also an experienced advocate, having successfully represented clients before both appellate courts of North Carolina in her capacity as an attorney in the Office of the Appellate Defender.   

Sande L. Buhai, Loyola Law School

Serves as a Clinical Professor and as the Director of the Public Interest Law Department at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. She has taught Ethical Lawyering, the law school’s unique version of the professional responsibility class, since 1989. She is the founding Director of the Loyola’s mandatory pro bono program, in which approximately 400 students each year provide a minimum of 40 hours of unpaid legal services to the community. She currently serves on the executive committee of the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility and has served on the California and Los Angeles County Bar Associations’ Professional Responsibility Committees. Sande has written many articles about the ethical duties of lawyers and Judges. She has recently written articles focusing on the behavioral and psychological perspective of lawyer decision making and on articles looking globally at the training of members of the profession, particularly Judges.  

Davalene Cooper, New England Law

Is a Professor of Law at New England Law │ Boston.  She teaches in the areas of legal ethics, criminal law, alternative dispute resolution, restorative justice, and modern remedies and writes in the areas of restorative justice and professional responsibility.  Her current writing project considers whether there is a place for restorative justice principles in lawyer disciplinary systems.  She also runs the first year orientation program for incoming law students at New England, which focuses on issues of professionalism for both law students and lawyers.  One of her particular interests is in how best to incorporate international issues of legal practice and professionalism into her legal ethics course. She is coauthor of Proof of Cases in Massachusetts' Vol. 3: Evidence.   Previously, she taught legal practice skills at Suffolk University Law School, served as a staff attorney at the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky, Inc., and as an attorney fellow at the National Consumer Law Center. 

Adam Dodek, University of Ottawa

Is an Associate Professor in the Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law where he heads up the school’s Professionalism Initiative.  He teaches a first-year elective in Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility and commencing in 2011-2012 will also teach an upper-year elective.  He administers a national listserv for teachers of legal ethics in Canada and is a member of the Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism, the Academic Advisory Board of the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Legal Profession and is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Legal Ethics (CALE).  He has written extensively on legal ethics in Canada including on solicitor-client privilege, ethics and regulation of government lawyers and conflicts of interest and he is writing a book on Solicitor-Client Privilege.  Prior to teaching, he practiced law in San Francisco and Toronto and served as Senior Policy Adviser and then as Chief of Staff to the Attorney General.   

Jordan Gross, University of Montana

Is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Montana, where she teaches Professional Responsibility and Environmental Crimes and supervises the Law School’s external Prosecution Clinics.  She serves on the Law School’s Honor Code Committee and is a member of the Western Montana Bar Association Pro Bono Committee.  Before joining the faculty at the University of Montana in Fall of 2010, she was a partner at a litigation firm in Seattle specializing in federal white collar criminal defense and complex civil litigation.  She is the only professor teaching Professional Responsibility at the only law school in Montana. 

Carol M. Langford, University of San Francisco School of Law

Is a lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area.  She specializes in giving advice on legal ethics and discipline to attorneys, judges, law firms and corporations, and in representing lawyers and law students before the California State Bar in disciplinary and admissions matters.  She serves as a national expert witness in the ethics area.  She was formerly a partner in the Walnut Creek office of the international law firm of Carroll, Burdick & McDonough, where she was ethics advisor to the firm and a member of the New Business Committee.  Carol has devoted a considerable amount of her time to training lawyers in issues involving law practice management.  She has also co-written two books: a nationally adopted textbook entitled Legal Ethics in the Practice of Law, 3rd  Edition (Lexis Law Publishing, 3rd edition 2007 )and The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer, Truth, Justice, Power and Greed (Ballantine,1999).  In addition to her practice, she has served as Chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Section, Chair of the Law Practice Management and Technology Committee of the State Bar of California, and Chair of the Council of Section Chairs.  She also served as the Chair and Special Advisor to the California State Bar Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, and has taught ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law since 1992 and at the University of California Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law.  She recently won a Woman of the Year award from the Contra Costa County Commission on Women for “Women Who Seek Justice” and the Lichtenstein Distinguished Professorship of Legal Ethics Award from Hofstra University Law School in New York.   

Carolyn Wilkes Kaas (Carrie), Quinnipiac University School of Law

Is an Associate Professor of Law at Quinnipiac University School of Law in Hamden, Connecticut.  She is the Director of Clinical Programs and also serves as the Director of the Law School’s Family Law Concentration program and Co-Director of the Center on Dispute Resolution and its Project for Children and the Family.  Carrie has taught for twenty years in the in-house Civil Clinic, supervising students who handled a variety of civil matters, predominantly family law cases. She is currently teaching a wide range of field placement courses.  Ethics and professionalism are the core focus of the classroom component for the entire clinical program; the externship program seminar is entitled “Examining the Practice of Law.”  She also teaches Mediation, Negotiation, and is the lead professor for the clinical pre-requisite course in interviewing, counseling, and negotiation, Introduction to Representing Clients.  Carrie has served on several committees and boards, including the national Clinical Legal Education Association, the Connecticut Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism, and the board of Connecticut Legal Services. She is studying non-defensive communication and its application in law, and is a founding board member of the Canadian and the international non-profit, The Non-Defensive Voice.  She also serves as the co-president of the Connecticut Council for Divorce Mediation and Collaborative Practice, as well as being a founding member of the Connecticut Mediation Network.  

Katerina Lewinbuk, South Texas College of Law

Is an Associate Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas.  She previously taught at DePaul University Law School in Chicago.  Prior to that, she was a practicing attorney at the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie law firm. Her major areas of interest and research involve global and comparative ethics and attorney malpractice.  She has authored articles on these topics and teaches Legal Profession in a Comparative Context (taught in Prague, Czech Republic in 2010 and in Valletta, Malta in 2011) and Attorney-Client Disputes.  Katerina also served as Legal Research and Writing Program Director and has taught at the International Law Institute in Washington, D.C., which prepares international LL.M. students to enter law schools throughout the United States and provides an overview of the U.S. legal system to judges and practicing attorneys from around the world.  She has taught a survey of U.S. business law course overseas as a Fulbright Senior Specialist twice: at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic (2010) and at Facultad Libre Derecho de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico (2007).  She has also taught her American Legal System and Lawyering Skills course in Moscow and Istanbul.  Her article entitled “Can Successful Lawyers Think in Different Languages?” was published in the United Kingdom in 2007 and was afterwards republished in the United States, Greece, and the Russian Federation.  

Michelle Mason, Florida International University College of Law

Is Senior Associate Dean at Florida International University College of Law.  She joined the College of Law as founding Associate Dean for Admissions and Student Services in 2001. Her responsibilities include the supervision of enrollment management operations (admissions, financial aid and registration), the student development areas (student affairs, career development, community service, and externship programming) as well as oversight for the law school’s various student outreach programming and pipeline initiatives.  Prior to joining the FIU College of Law, Michelle worked as Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment at Phillips Exeter Academy, Associate Director of Admissions at Seton Hall Law School, and Assistant Dean for Admissions at Vermont Law.  She serves on numerous College of Law, University, state-wide and national committees including the AALS Executive Committee of the Section on Student Services (Chair-Elect, 2011 – 2012) as well as the Florida Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Committee.   In 2010, she was appointed as the Director of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) 2010 Summer Institute and taught in FIU’s clinical program.  Recently, she was selected to serve as founding Interim Director for the new FIU Law Center for Professionalism and Ethics where she currently is working with the faculty to further develop professionalism and ethics curricular offerings. 

Judith L. Maute, University of Oklahoma College of Law

Is the William J. Alley Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.  She has taught professional responsibility since 1982 at Oklahoma, five summers in Oxford and as a visitor in several U.S. schools.  Her recent research addresses comparative legal ethics, with a primary focus on the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.  Her initial work considered the split English legal professions and fusion debate, and several pieces followed the Clementi Review, which eventually culminated in the U.K. Legal Services Act (2007) and is now in various stages of implementation.  She has published widely in the United States and the U.K., including, most recently, Global Continental Shifts to New Governance Paradigm in Lawyer Regulation and Consumer Protection:  Riding the Wave, REAFFIRMING LEGAL ETHICS: TAKING STOCK AND NEW IDEAS (Mortensen, et. al., Eds.) (Routledge 2010).  Her participation in the International Legal Ethics Conferences III and IV deepened her appreciation of far-sighted regulatory and consumer protection approaches in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Scotland, Canada and elsewhere.  She believes that without doubt, ongoing technological changes will result in an increasingly globalized legal profession.  She would like to develop a course in Comparative Legal Ethics.   

Mary Helen McNeal, Syracuse University College of Law

Is Director of the Office of Clinical Legal Education at the Syracuse University College of Law. She joined the College of Law faculty in 2005. Mary Helen teaches the Elder Law Clinic, and her research and writing interests include clinical teaching, ethical issues in legal services practice, equal justice issues, and the role of culture in lawyering.   Prior to coming to Syracuse, Professor McNeal was the clinic director of the University of Montana School of Law, where she also taught Public Interest Lawyering.  She is active in the Association of American Law Schools, having served as on its Equal Justice Task Force, as Chair of the Clinical Section, and as a member of the Clinical Section’s Task Force on the Status of Clinicians and the Academy. She has also worked to extensively on equal justice issues, and served as Chair of the Montana Supreme Court’s Equal Justice Task Force and as a member of the Montana State Bar’s Access to Justice Committee. 

James Milles, University at Buffalo Law School

Is a Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo Law School.  His teaching and research focus on legal ethics, online speech and privacy, and electronic discovery. An overall theme in his work is examining how we make decisions.  In the context of legal ethics, he draws on cognitive dissonance theory and biases and heuristics theory to study how lawyers make bad ethical decisions. By incorporating these approaches in his classroom instruction, he hopes to help students develop the self-critical skills which will enable them to examine their motivations in difficult ethical situations and to avoid the tendencies of self-justification which can easily lead to ethical violations. As a former law librarian with lengthy experience in management and administration, he draws on this experience in his own understanding of the difficulties of making ethical decisions in complex situations. His work in social media and online communication necessarily involves global interactions, and in both online speech and privacy and electronic discovery, he teaches his students to be aware of the international framework and to be sensitive to cultural differences. 

Chantal Morton, Osgoode Hall Law School

Is a consultant in adult education and professional development based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She teaches the first year course, Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community, at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and develops and delivers programs with a focus on best practices in adult education, ethics and professionalism, and mentorship for various law firms.  In 2009-2010, she was the Director of the Centre for the Legal Profession (CLP), whose mission is to advance professionalism, ethics and public service, at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.   Prior to her appointment at the CLP, she held positions at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, as Adjunct Faculty (teaching Law and Poverty and Law, Gender and Equality), Academic Director of the Intensive Program in Poverty Law, and Director of Career Services.  Chantal has participated on several boards and working groups including the Equity Advisory Group of the Law Society of Upper Canada; the Clinical Education Committee, Equality Committee and Public Interest Requirement Committee at Osgoode; and chaired the Canadian Section of NALP, the Diversity Working Group of the Canadian Section, and the Board of Schools Without Borders. 

Andrew Pirie, University of Victoria

Is a Professor of Law at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He teaches the Faculty’s only stand-alone course on ethics and professionalism, The Legal Profession, and also strongly integrates issues of professional ethics into his other courses on Alternative Dispute Resolution, Mediation, and Civil Procedure.  His research, writing, and conference presentations have significant professionalism components and have focused on lawyers’ roles as mediators and in settlement negotiations.  Andrew has presented papers on these topics at conferences and conducted skills training workshops in Canada, the United States, Australia, England, Fiji, Thailand, Cambodia and the UAE.  Andrew also has designed and delivered workshops for judges in Judicial Dispute Resolution (JDR) including professional responsibility issues.  Andrew was the founding director of the Mediation Development Association of BC, first co-Chair of the Conflict Resolution Council of BC and the founding Executive Director of the UVic Institute for Dispute Resolution (IDR) in 1989. In his capacity as Executive Director of IDR, Andrew was responsible for organizing and leading the Institute's international work in Thailand and Cambodia. He also has acted as a mediator in a variety of dispute settings.   With the recent Report of the Federation of Canadian Law Societies mandating professional responsibility as a mandatory course at Canadian law schools, Andrew’s teaching and research continues to explore the evolution of professional legal ethics within the changing role of lawyers.

Robert Eli Rosen (Rob), University of Miami

Is a Professor of Law at the University of Miami.  He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford Law School and a Fellow in Ethics and the Professions at Harvard.  He has been studying and consulting with corporate legal departments for over thirty years.  His dissertation (LAWYERS IN CORPORATE DECISION-MAKING) was recently published in a series of “Classic Dissertations in Law & Society.”  He began studying legal departments not only because he early recognized their growing power but also because he comes from a tradition in which commitment, not independence, is the basis for ethical judgment.  Studying varieties of commitment in the practice of corporate law has led him to consider how inside counsel exercise corporate power, how the flattening of the corporation influences the abilities of both inside and outside counsel to influence corporate decision-making, and what legal skills enable lawyers to move into management.  At the University of Miami, Rob is engaged with Law Without Walls, a course across universities and continents in which students work on developing innovations for legal education and practice.  

Justin P. Wilson, Comptroller-Tennessee State Treasury

Is the Comptroller of the Treasury of the State of Tennessee.  As such he is responsible for the financial integrity of all governmental entities in that state.   He also manages the state debt and oversees debt issuance by local governments.   As part of his duties, he reviews all contracts that the State makes for economic development, including those made with businesses headquartered outside of the United States.  This involves dealing with different approaches to the role of government and the way lawyers from other countries deal with government.  Justin is also an Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt University, where he has every year since 2004 taught a course in Professional Responsibility.  His classes are highly interactive, often based on hypotheticals derived from his experience as managing partner in Tennessee’s largest law firm.  His practice during those years in large part consisted in representing businesses from foreign countries opening facilities in Tennessee.

Workshop Speakers and Discussants

Muriel J. Bebeau (Mickey), University of Minnesota 

Is Professor, School of Dentistry; Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Bioethics; Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Educational Psychology; and Director Emerita of the Center for the Study of Ethical Development at the University of Minnesota. She pioneered the evidence-based teaching of ethics in dentistry.  Her research and publication awards include: Honorary Fellowship in the American College of Dentists, the Lifetime Achievement award for contributions to the psychology of morality from the international Association for Moral Education; an Outstanding Book Award for contributions to moral theory described in Postconventional Moral Thinking: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999) from the American Educational Research Association; and a Civilian Meritorious Service Award for her curriculum work on character and leadership development while a Visiting Scholar at the United States Military Academy.  Mickey’s research on teaching and assessing ethical development are summarized in the Institute of Medicine's Integrity in Scientific Research (National Academies Press, 2002) and her work on professional identity formation is described in Dentists Who Care:  Inspiring Stories of Professional Commitment (Quintessence Books, 2005), coauthored with James Rule.  Recent chapters in Volume 10 of Advances in Bioethics (Elsevier Ltd., 2006), the Handbook on Moral and Character Education (Routledge, 2008), and an article in the University of St. Thomas Law Journal summarize what has become known as the “Minnesota approach” to professional ethical development.  Four co-authored articles in Professional Psychology:  Research and Practice, reflect the broadening concern for inclusion of ethical development in professional competence assessment. 

Thomas Berg, University of St. Thomas School of Law 

Is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and St. Ives Professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.  Before joining the St. Thomas faculty, he taught for 10 years at Samford University’s Cumberland Law School. In addition to teaching constitutional law, law and religion, intellectual property, civil procedure, and federal courts, he has established himself as one of the leading scholars of law and religion in the United States. He has written approximately 60 articles in law reviews and religion journals on religious freedom, constitutional law, and the role of religion in law, politics and society. He is the author of The State and Religion in a Nutshell (now in a second edition), part of West Publishing Company's leading series of law books; and he is co-author with Michael McConnell and John Garvey of Religion and the Constitution, a casebook published by Aspen Publishing (second edition forthcoming). He is also working on Diversity and Devotion, a legal and cultural history of American church-state relations since World War II.  At St. Thomas, Berg is co-director of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy. He has written more than 25 briefs on issues of religious liberty and free speech in the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts and has often testified to Congress in support of legislation protecting religious freedom. Berg has also been a visiting professor at the University of Aix-Marseille in Aix-en-Provence, France, and the University of Siena in Italy.  He has made numerous presentations to academic, professional, religious, and community groups, including the annual conventions of the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools. He is a regular contributor to Mirror of Justice, a weblog on Catholic legal theory. He is past chair of the Law and Religion Section of the Association of American Law Schools and a member of advisory committees for the National Council of Churches, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the DePaul University Center for Church-State Studies, and the Democrats for Life of Minnesota. He is also a member of the European-American Consortium on Church-State Relations, and an associate of the Crossroads Center for Faith and Public Policy. 

Lisa Montpetit Brabbit, University of St. Thomas School of Law

Is the Assistant Dean for External Relations at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.  Before joining St. Thomas, she specialized in personal injury, products liability and wrongful death.  In 2002, Minnesota Law and Politics named Brabbit one of the top 50 women lawyers in Minnesota and she has been named Super Lawyer on 8 occasions.  Most recently, she was the recipient of Minnesota Women Lawyer’s most prestigious award, the Myra Bradwell Award.  The Myra Bradwell Award is presented to an MWL member who expresses the highest ideals of the legal profession and who possesses the qualities exemplified by Myra Bradwell including courage, perseverance and leadership on issues of concern to women.  Brabbit received the Excellence in Professional Preparation award from St. Thomas in 2004.  In 2005, Minnesota Lawyer honored her as one of fifteen Minnesota Attorneys of the Year. Under her leadership, the UST Mentor Externship Program was awarded the E. Symthe Gambrell Professionalism Award in 2005 from the ABA.  She earned Honorable Mention for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism in 2005.  In June of 2007, she received the Hennepin County Bar Association’s Professionalism Award.   She is a founding member of The Infinity Project and the Minnesota Women’s Press named her a 2008 Changemaker for her work on the Infinity Project.  She serves on the Council of the Minnesota State Bar Association.  She is a past-president of Minnesota Women Lawyers and serves on its Advisory Board. She serves on the Executive Committee and Board of Governors for the Minnesota Association for Justice.  She is an invited member of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation.  Most recently, she joined the Board of Directors for the Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. 

Clark D. Cunningham

Is the inaugural holder of the W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics at the Georgia State University College of Law. He is the director of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism and the Effective Lawyer-Client Communication Project, an international collaboration of law teachers, lawyers and social scientists. He is a past-Convenor of the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Justice Education, an international organization of over 700 law teachers, lawyers, and leaders of non-governmental organizations from more than 50 countries.  He is a vice-chair of the Academic and Professional Development Committee of the International Bar Association, and a member of The Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, the oldest professional association of lawyers in the world, which is charged with custody of the royal seal of the British monarchy. He served as an international member of the Expert Advisory Group for the Learning and Teaching Standards Project- Law of the Australian Learning & Teaching Council (ALTC) charged with drafting threshold learning outcomes for legal education in Australia; he is also a member of the Project Reference Group for another project supported by the ALTC, Curriculum Renewal in Legal Education: Articulating Final Year Curriculum Design Principles and Designing a Transferable Final Year Program. He has served as an expert on legal ethics in a number of major cases, and his reasoning has been adopted by the Missouri Supreme Court and federal courts in Georgia and Illinois in decisions disqualifying lawyers for conflicts of interest. 

Neil W. Hamilton, Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions

Is a Professor of Law and Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. He has taught both the required course in Professional Responsibility and an ethics seminar for 20 years. He is the author of three books and over fifty articles and writes a bi-monthly columnist on professionalism and ethics for the Minnesota Lawyer. In 2002 the Minnesota Lawyer selected him as one of the recipients of its Lawyer of the Year awards and in 2003 he received the Hennepin County Professionalism Award. In 2004, the Minnesota State Bar Association presented him with the Professional Excellence Award, given to recognize and encourage professionalism among lawyers. He received the University of St. Thomas Presidential Award for Excellence as a Teacher and Scholar in 2009. He and Verna Monson are working on a series of empirical studies of professionalism including the working paper they just posted on SSRN, "The Empirical Relationship of Professionalism to Effectiveness in the Practice of Law" at http://ssrn.com/abstracts=1495824  

Allan Hutchinson, Osgoode Hall Law School

Has been a member of Osgoode Hall Law School's faculty since 1982, has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada, made a Distinguished Research Professor of York University, and received the University-wide Teaching Award. He has recently been Associate Dean (Research, Graduate Studies and External relations), Chair of York University's Senate, and a member of York University's Board of Governors. He is also counsel to the law firm of Rochon, Genova.  Much of his work has been devoted to examining the failure of law to live up to its democratic promise. In addition to numerous law review articles, his most recent publications are Evolution and the Common Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), The Companies We Keep: Corporate Governance for A Democratic Society (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2005), The Province of Jurisprudence Democratized (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) and Is Eating People Wrong?: Great Legal Cases and How They Shaped The World  (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). He was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School in 2007 and has recently been Associate Vice-President (Graduate) at York University. He is presently working on a book on legal ethics and military ethics.

Thomas Mengler, University of St. Thomas School of Law 

Is Dean and Ryan Chair in Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.  In his eight years as dean, the faculty has more than doubled, applications have tripled, and the School of Law has reached a fundraising total of $90 million.  Dean Mengler was instrumental in the School of Law receiving ABA accreditation in February 2006, the earliest possible time. He also managed the completion and opening of the 158,000 square-foot law building in downtown Minneapolis, and under his direction the building has become an important destination for the Twin Cities’ bench and bar.  He became the second dean at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in June 2002. He joined St. Thomas after serving for nine years as dean of the University of Illinois College of Law. During Mengler’s tenure as dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, the law school was consistently ranked among the top 25 law schools in the nation.  Mengler’s scholarly interests are in the fields of civil procedure, federal courts jurisdiction, and complex litigation. He co-drafted the federal statute on supplemental jurisdiction, and his writings on this statute were recently cited in the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Exxon v. Allapattah Services. 

Verna Monson, Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions

Is an educational psychologist specializing in ethics education in the professions. As Research Fellow with the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Verna conducts research and scholarship on the formation of ethical professional identity in law school and the professions.  Together with the Holloran Center's Director and Professor of Law, Neil Hamilton, she is researching how lawyers who are peer-honored exemplars of professionalism, early career lawyers, and law students define professionalism. Longitudinal research on ethical development outcomes in law school is ongoing.  She is also investigating the use of cooperative learning in legal education with Professor Jerry Organ, Associate Director of the Holloran Center.   Together with Dr. Muriel Bebeau of the Center for the Study of Ethical Development, Verna co-authored "Guided by Theory, Grounded in Evidence: A Way Forward for Professional Ethics Education," in the Handbook for Moral and Character Education.  She is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, the Association of Moral Education, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.  In 2009-10, Verna presented to a national audience of judges and lawyers about evaluation of mentoring programs in legal education, law firms, and bar associations at the Best Practices in Mentoring conference at the Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough Center for Professionalism at the University of South Carolina. 

Jerry Organ, University of St. Thomas School of Law

Joined the University of St. Thomas School of Law as a founding faculty member in 2001 and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2005-2009. At St. Thomas, he has taught Property, Land Use Controls, Client Interviewing and Counseling, Environmental Law Seminar, Foundations of Justice and Mentor Externship. Prior to joining the St. Thomas faculty, he taught at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law for ten years after practicing environmental law for several years at Foley and Lardner in Milwaukee. His early scholarship focused primarily on environmental law and, in particular, on developing more efficient means of resolving environmental disputes. His scholarship also addresses environmental federalism - that, is the balance of authority in environmental matters as between the federal government and state governments. More recently, he has begun to write about the culture of law schools, with an emphasis on fostering a more integrated and holistic approach to legal education. This is reflected in the Property and Lawyering casebook that he coauthored. He presently is working on articles about the impact of student scholarship programs on law school culture, the extent to which law school missions provide a foundation for outcomes assessment in law schools and the professionalism issues associated with abuse of performance enhancing drugs in law schools. 

Paul D. Paton, McGeorge School of Law

Is Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California. He is Director of the McGeorge Ethics Across the Professions Initiative, a ten-year grant funded by the Sierra Health Foundation. He teaches Professional Responsibility, Corporate Governance, Business Associations and Ethics for the Government and Public Lawyer. From 2004-2008 he was Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University (Canada).   His articles on legal ethics and professional responsibility issues have appeared in both the United States and in Canada, notably on lawyers in corporate contexts, on comparative approaches to lawyer self-regulation, on multidisciplinary practice, and on lawyers in the Enron scandal. He was a NIFTEP Fellow in 2005 and 2006, and has been Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee since 2009. Prior to entering the academy full-time in 2004, Paul practiced as in-house counsel to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, as Justice and Social Policy Advisor to the Premier of Ontario, and as a commercial litigation partner in one of Canada’s leading law firms. He clerked for the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.  Paul was appointed a Reporter to the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission in 2010, with primary responsibility for its working groups on Alternative Business Structures and Entity Regulation. 

Tiffany W. Roberts, NIFTEP 

Is the Deputy Director of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism (NIFTEP).  In 2008, Tiffany presented at the International Forum on Legal Education on her research in Durban, South Africa on the value of mandatory clinical experience to law students.  Also in 2008, she published a student note in the Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy based on her research abroad funded by the Study Space Fellowship at the Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth, “The Ties That Bind: Capitalizing on the Existing Social Fabric in Public Housing to Revitalize Neighborhoods and Avoid Displacement in Panama City, Panama.”  In 2010, Tiffany was appointed by Mayor Kasim Reed to sit on a community panel for the selection of the city’s next police chief.  Her appointment was based on her leadership role in a local community safety organization.  She presently volunteers with several organizations that promote justice, fairness and equity in the criminal justice system.  In 2011, Tiffany opened a solo law practice after over two years of practicing felony indigent defense at the Office of the Public Defender, Atlanta Judicial Circuit.  She has an interest in clinical legal education and legal ethics and professionalism, particularly as  applied in the criminal justice setting. 

Steven R. Sorenson, American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism

Is a member of the Standing Committee on Professionalism of the American Bar Association, a Past-President of the National Conference of Bar Presidents,  a former member of the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.  He is the owner of the Sorenson Law Office in Ripon and Laona, Wisconsin.  Prior to practicing law, he was a newspaper editor. As a lawyer, Steve has served in many capacities with the State Bar of Wisconsin, chairing several of the State Bar Standing Committees, including the Finance, Solo and Small Firm, Communications, Convention and Entertainment Committees.  He served as Secretary in 1994-96 and then as President in 1997-1998 of the State Bar of Wisconsin; he also is a past-president of the Wisconsin Law Foundation Fellows and a member of the foundation Board of Trustees. He chairs the District 3 Office of Lawyer Regulation Committee and has served on the ethics committee of the ABA Legal Education Committee. Steve has presented seminars on Legal Ethics at various state, regional and national programs and is an adjunct professor of Political Science and Journalism at Ripon College. He teaches media ethics and law, land use law and constitutional law but has also taught introductory journalism and social ethics courses. He is a frequent guest lecturer on “Quality of Life” issues and legal ethics both at the University of Wisconsin and for bar associations. 

Michael J. Virzi 

Is a Legal Writing Instructor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he co-developed and co-teaches Fundamentals of Law Practice and Professionalism. Before joining the USC faculty, he worked as an Assistant Disciplinary Counsel for the South Carolina Supreme Court, and he practiced business litigation prior to that. He has served on the South Carolina Bar's Ethics Advisory Committee for eight years, including 3 years as Committee Chair. He has published two articles and a book chapter on lawyer ethics, as well as numerous ethics advisory opinions. He routinely guest lectures at USC and the Charleston School of Law in the area of lawyer ethics. He also has a small side practice in lawyer grievance defense and regularly provides expert witness testimony in legal malpractice cases.