practices law in Roswell, Georgia. After graduating from law school, he worked for three (3) years as an associate attorney for an insurance defense firm in Southern California. In 1992, he and his amily relocated to the metro-Atlanta area, and for the past nineteen (19) years he has focused his practice in the area of professional and personal liability, including the representation of other lawyers in legal malpractice claims and State Bar disciplinary proceedings. In addition to the Atlanta Bar Association, he is a member of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, the Lawyer’s Club of Atlanta, and the American Bar Association’s Center for Professional Responsibility.
David S. Caudill is the Arthur M. Goldberg Family Chair in Law at Villanova University, where he teaches Professional Responsibility, Property, and Expert Evidence. After law school, he clerked for the late Judge John R. Brown in the Fifth Circuit, practiced real estate and land use planning law with Gray, Cary in San Diego (1982-1985) and Graves, Dougherty in Austin (1985-1989), then joined the law faculty at Washington and Lee University (1989-2005). He has taught Professional Responsibility for 22 years, and he also teaches Virginia Legal Ethics for the BarBri bar review course. He is a frequent CLE ethics lecturer and is the founding director of the Law and Literature Symposium held each year (for the past 18 years) at Washington and Lee (in which he presents a 2-hour CLE ethics program).
His publications include articles on the ethical obligations of sports attorneys, the ethics of presenting experts in court and legal-ethical themes in literature. In his Professional Responsibility course at Villanova, the casebook for which begins with an overview of the disciplinary system, he regularly invites a member of the substance abuse committee of the Pennsylvania Bar to discuss disciplinary issues and procedures; he is also the supervisor for the externship (for a Villanova law student) with the Delaware Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Kelly Faglioni is Deputy General Counsel and a litigation partner at Hunton & Williams LLP. Her litigation experience spans both commercial and regulatory litigation before state and federal trial and appellate courts, regulatory agencies and alternative dispute resolution forums. A significant amount of her litigation practice has focused on product issues that have included compliance, recall, investigations, retail sale, warranty and products liability. She also has experience litigating professional malpractice, business torts and post-M&A, contract, corporate governance and partnership disputes. Her regulatory litigation practice has involved the nuclear and telecommunications industries. As the firm’s Deputy General Counsel, Kelly has substantial experience with law firm ethics, conflicts, compliance, and risk management, including defense of malpractice and third party claims. In this capacity and as Chair of the firm’s Conflicts and Professional Conduct Committee, Kelly regularly advises on conflicts issues and compliance with professional rules and guides the firm’s Business Intake and Conflicts section.
Kelly also serves as an adjunct professor at Washington & Lee School of Law where team teaches one of the school’s innovative third-year practicum classes, "The Complete Life of an M&A Transaction." She is responsible for modules on professional rules applicable to client engagement and conflict issues and post-transaction disputes. Kelly has been a writer and presenter of numerous ethics CLE’s for the firm, bar groups, and clients, most recently "Perspectives from the In-House & Outhouse and Underlying Ethics Issues," "Corporate Counsel Under the Microscope," and "Ethical Issues Associated with Use of Private Investigator."
Charles Herring, Jr.is a lawyer in Austin and is a partner in the law firm of Herring & Irwin LLP. He is certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He is co-author with Professor Albright of the Handbook on Texas Discovery Practice, part of the West Practice series. Since 1990 he has written Texas Legal Malpractice and Lawyer Discipline, which he updates annually. He has written many articles on legal malpractice, legal ethics, and litigation topics, and has taught and lectured extensively on those subjects. In 1991 the Supreme Court of Texas appointed him to chair the Statewide Task Force on Sanctions and the court also appointed him to serve two terms on the court’s advisory committee. He received a presidential citation from the State Bar of Texas for his service as chair of the Committee on the Prevention of Legal Malpractice and Grievances and he received the First Annual Professionalism Award from the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and the Travis County Bar Association.
He also has served as an examiner for the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Specialization for the Lawyer Liability Examination. He has handled general litigation and legal malpractice litigation on both sides of the docket, as well as grievance defense and he advises many lawyers and law firms on legal ethics issues.
Aviva Meridian Kaiser has taught Professional Responsibilities at the University of Wisconsin Law School for seven years and has served on the Professional Ethics Committee of the State Bar of Wisconsin for three years. She has also presented CLE seminars on Professional Responsibilities. Aviva joined the Law School faculty in 1988, teaching Advanced Legal Writing, Legal Research, and Judicial Decision Making and Opinion Writing. From 1992 until 2002, she was the Director of the Legal Research and Writing Program.
In addition to the required Professional Responsibilities course, she currently teaches seminars in Contemporary Issues in Professional Conduct, Problem Solving and Reflective Writing. She is also developing a skills module for risk management. Aviva began her teaching career at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law where she taught Legal Research and Writing, Drafting, and Remedies. She also taught Legal Research and Writing at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law.
Michael S. McGinniss is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of North Dakota School of Law, where he joined the faculty in 2010 and teaches courses on Professional Responsibility, Evidence, Conflict of Laws, and Lawyering Skills. After graduating from law school in 1993, he served as law clerk for Honorable Randy J. Holland of the Supreme Court of Delaware and then practiced law in a Delaware firm for four years. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Delaware appointed him to its Office of Disciplinary Counsel. During his twelve years of service as Disciplinary Counsel, he was responsible for the evaluation, investigation, and prosecution of numerous lawyer disciplinary matters before the Court and its Board on Professional Responsibility.
He has made dozens of continuing legal education presentations and speaking appearances before lawyers and judges in order to promote a culture of professionalism and an ongoing understanding of ethical obligations relating to law practice. His current research and scholarship interests include the relationships between courts and lawyer disciplinary agencies, choice of law for rules governing a lawyer’s ethical obligations and questions concerning the professional, ethical and moral responsibilities of lawyers. See, e.g., Virtue Ethics, Earnestness and the Deciding Lawyer: Human Flourishing in a Legal Community, 87 N.D. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming in 2011).
He has also published legal scholarship addressing the regulation of multi-jurisdictional practice and the unauthorized practice of law. See, e.g., Five Years Later: The Delaware Experience With Multi-Jurisdictional Practice, 10 Del. L. Rev. 125 (2008).
Reena E. Parambath is the Director of the Co-op Program and Associate Teaching Professor at Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has been directing the Co-op Program since 2007 and is responsible for overseeing the field placements of over 100 students a year in diverse practice settings such as in-house legal departments, law firms, judicial chambers, public interest organizations and governmental agencies. She also teaches Lawyering Practice Seminar, the classroom component of the Co-op Program. Her other teaching areas include legal methods, litigation drafting, and professional responsibility.
Prior to joining Earle Mack School of Law, she practiced law for 15 years. From 1991-1999 she was an Assistant City Solicitor at the City of Philadelphia Law Department. While working for the City of Philadelphia, she focused her practice in revenue and environmental enforcement, zoning appeals and claims against the City. In 1999 she joined Rawle & Henderson LLP as an Associate and represented municipalities, corporate clients and individuals in a variety of matters including collection, general casualty defense, employment, and commercial disputes. In 2002, she was elected as partner at Rawle & Henderson and she served in that capacity until she left the firm in 2006 to teach full-time. From 2005-2007 she was an Adjunct Professor at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware where she taught legal research and writing to first year and upper level students.
Kamina Pinder is a visiting professor at Howard University School of Law where she teaches Professional Responsibility, Contracts and Remedies. She is also currently teaching a Business Ethics course at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Kamina teaches Georgia Professional Responsibility for Barbri and has also taught legal ethics at University of Tennessee College of Law and at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School. She has taught Legal Writing at University of Texas School of Law and was a clinical teaching fellow at Georgetown University Law Center.
Kamina is a former a program attorney at the U.S. Department of Education where she provided legal counsel to a number of elementary and secondary school grant programs. Although her scholarship has focused on education law and policy, she is currently researching an article related to law and business ethics.
Barbara Seymour is the Deputy Disciplinary Counsel to the Supreme Court of South Carolina where she investigates and prosecutes grievances filed against lawyers. Barbara worked as a trial lawyer from 1993 to 2000. She served as an adjunct instructor in the Professional Legal Assistants Program at Converse College and currently teaches as an adjunct in the Paralegal Degree Program at Midlands Technical College. Her courses have included Civil Litigation, Legal Research and Writing, Business Law, Torts, Ethics, and Law Office Management. Barbara is a member of the South Carolina Bar, the Georgia Bar (inactive), and the National Organization of Bar Counsel.
She currently serves on the Law Related Education Committee and the Professional Responsibility Committee at the South Carolina Bar. Barbara was named the 2006 Law Related Education Lawyer of the Year. She was a 2006 Fellow of the National Institute for the Teaching of Ethics and Professionalism. Barbara is a frequent speaker at law schools, CLE seminars and state, regional, and national conferences on a variety of topics related to ethics and discipline. Barbara is the creator and coordinator of the Legal Ethics and Practice Program (LEAPP), which includes ethics, advertising, and trust account schools, sponsored by the Supreme Court and the South Carolina Bar.
Mitchell Simon has been a Professor of Law at University of New Hampshire School of Law (formerly Franklin Pierce Law Center) for over twenty years. During this time, he has focused his teaching and scholarship on legal ethics and bioethics. His most recent scholarship has focused on the character and fitness process, especially for those with youthful offenses. See e.g., Mitchell M. Simon, What’s Remorse Got to Do, Got to Do With It? Bar Admission for Those With Youthful Offenses, 2010 Mich. St. L . Rev. 1001 (2010). Before joining the faculty, He was a trial lawyer and Litigation Director for New Hampshire Legal Assistance.
He also is Of Counsel to the Attorney Conduct Practice Group of Devine, Millimet and Branch in Manchester, New Hampshire. In this capacity he represents clients in disciplinary cases, malpractice cases and character and fitness matters. He is past chair of the New Hampshire Ethics Committee and has been a member of the Rules of Professional Conduct Drafting Committee.
Sarah Valentine is Dean of Students at CUNY School of Law where she teaches professionalism and professional responsibility. She is also responsible for assessing character and fitness issues of law school applicants as well as those that may arise with current students. Her scholarship has focused on the potential use of ethical codes of conduct to help safeguard sexual minority youth in the juvenile justice system and on the importance of re-creating commonly taught skills based courses to further professionalism in legal education.
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 a 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.
William Weigel is Litigation Counsel for the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Office of Lawyer Regulation. Bill supervises the litigation of all Wisconsin lawyer regulation (discipline, incapacity and reinstatement) cases. He has been doing so for over 15 years, following an initial dozen years in private practice. Bill is the immediate past president of the National Organization of Bar Counsel and has served on NOBC’s Board for the past 7 years. He also has served as a participating liaison to various ABA Standing Committees, including Ethics, Professionalism, Client Protection and Discipline.
Bill lectures extensively throughout Wisconsin on ethics-related topics and has presented various regulatory and professionalism programs nationally. Bill also taught Professional Responsibility at the University of Wisconsin’s law school (2002-2003) and currently serves as an elected municipal court judge in Verona, Wisconsin.
Maret Vessella is the Chief Bar Counsel at the State Bar of Arizona. She received her Juris Doctor in 1992. In November 1992 Maret was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and began her practice in a small firm concentrating on the areas of criminal defense and domestic relations. In 1994 she became Disciplinary Counsel for the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania where she prosecuted cases involving violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct. In October 1998 she was licensed in Arizona and began working for the State Bar of Arizona as Bar Counsel, representing the State Bar in various disciplinary matters. She was named Deputy Chief Bar Counsel in September 2002 and became Chief Bar Counsel in July 2009. The State Bar of Arizona is responsible for the regulation and discipline of persons engaged in the practice of law. She oversees and administers that regulatory process.
In August 2009 the Supreme Court appointed her to the Attorney Discipline Task Force to review Arizona’s discipline system and make recommendations to the Court for modifying the disciplinary process. Based on the work of the Task Force, the Arizona Supreme Court made significant changes to the discipline system. Under her leadership, the Lawyer Regulation Office made comprehensive changes in their processes and procedures to implement the new system. She is a member of the Arizona Women Lawyers Association, has participated on several Judicial Performance Review teams and has been a presenter at the National Organization of Bar Counsel conferences.
In addition she has taught numerous continuing legal education seminars, has presented to various law schools, has served on many State Bar Committees and has designed and participated in programs focused on enhancing the legal profession.
Roy Sobelson joined the College of Law faculty in 1985. He teaches Professional Responsibility, Civil Procedure and Evidence, and has long served as one of the College's Mock Trial team coaches. He has also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and taught as a visiting professor at the Emory University School of Law. Before entering academia he served as Managing Attorney at the Brunswick office of Georgia Legal Services, the activities of which are chronicled in Melissa Fay Greene's award winning book, Praying for Sheetrock. Roy lectures and writes widely on Ethics and Professionalism.
He has served on the Georgia Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism, the Formal Advisory Opinion Board and the Clients' Security Fund, as well as acting as reporter for the Georgia Chief Justice's Commission on the Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement. He is a regular instructor in trial techniques and served for a year as the Interim Director of the Kessler-Eidson Program for Trial Techniques at Emory.
Gene Shipp joined the District of Columbia Office of Bar Counsel in 1980 where he has served as an Assistant Bar Counsel for 3 years, Deputy Bar Counsel for 22 years and Bar Counsel since 2005. A 1972 graduate of Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC, he engaged in private practice in the Washington area from 1973 - 1980, handling more than 80 civil and criminal jury trials and now has argued more than 80 cases before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. He is a past President of the National Organization of Bar Counsel and a former member of the American Bar Association=s Standing Committee on Lawyer Responsibility for Client Protection. Gene is currently serving as a liaison between the NOBC and the ABA 20/20 Commission. In 1998, Gene was elected an ABA Fellow; and in 2002 Gene received the NOBC Presidential Award for lifetime achievement. In 2008, Gene was named one of the 30 "Champions in the Law" by the Legal Times. He has had the opportunity to speak to various international legal organizations, including a trip to Prague to address an eight-nation group on ethical/disciplinary issues.
He lectures frequently on ethics before DC Bar, ABA, local law schools and public service groups, and since 1999 has been an adjunct professor at The David Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia, George Washington University Law School and currently Washington College of Law at American University. Gene has made over 135 presentations on ethics and the disciplinary system as part of the Mandatory CLE Course to over 40,000 new members of the District of Columbia Bar.
Dennis Rendleman holds the position of ABA Ethics Counsel. He is the former ABA Senior Counsel for Professionalism and Specialization. Since joining the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility in April 2009, Dennis has served as counsel for the Standing Committee on Specialization, associate counsel for the Standing Committee on Professionalism and managed the Consortium on Professionalism and the E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award. He was one of the authors of the Annotated Model Code of Judicial Conduct, second edition. He is a former member of NOBC and is a current member of APRL. Prior to joining the ABA, Dennis was Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He spent twenty-three years at the Illinois State Bar Association, leaving in 2003 as General Counsel.
He has engaged in private practice as a consultant and expert witness in professional responsibility law and disciplinary matters. As a member of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Responsibility since 2004, he was involved in the redrafting of the 2010 Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct based upon the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. He is an original member, since 1998, of the ISBA/CBA/IJA Illinois Judicial Ethics Committee which issues advisory opinions on the Illinois Code of Judicial Conduct.
Tiffany Roberts 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 also currently serves as adjunct faculty at Georgia State University College of Law, co-teaching Fundamentals of Law Practice with Clark Cunningham. Tiffany has an interest in clinical legal education and legal ethics and professionalism, particularly as applied in the criminal justice setting.
Jerome Organ 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.
has been teaching at the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago in New Zealand since 1985. She has a BSc (double major in social psychology and communication studies) as well as a JD and she incorporates all three disciplines in her research and teaching. Prior to shifting to New Zealand, she clerked for the US Court of Appeals in New York City and practiced law in the media litigation department of a major New York law firm. Selene is a past NIFTEP fellow and recipient of the Prime Minister's Supreme Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award. She is the New Zealand Law Journal's correspondent for Legal Ethics. Topics of recent publications include the duty to disclose material information to one's client, effective client interviewing, cross-cultural client interviewing, negotiation theory and practice and the lawyer's obligations when representing charitable trusts.
is a nationally recognized leader in the field of legal ethics and professionalism. Among other positions he holds, Patrick is a member of the Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, the Advisory Board for the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism and the Formal Advisory Opinion Board of the State Bar of Georgia. He teaches Mercer’s first year course on professionalism, the upper-level Law of Lawyering course, Judicial Field Placement, and Law & Economics. He received the 2005 National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism from the Conference of Chief Justices, the ABA Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and the Burge Endowment for Legal Ethics. In his academic career, he has also taught at Stetson University, the University of Florida, Southern Methodist University, the Charleston School of Law, John Marshall Law School, and Georgia State University. Before entering law teaching, he served as a law clerk to Senior United States District Judge Bernard M. Decker in Chicago and practiced law with the firm of Andrews & Kurt in Dallas, Texas.
is a Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where he teaches courses on the legal profession, project management, business law, and law firm economics. In his research, Bill collects and analyzes data on legal education and the market for legal talent. In addition to writing articles in leading legal academic journals, Bill’s essays and columns have appeared in The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, ABA Journal, National Jurist, Legal Affairs, USA Business Review, and Askmen.com. Bill was recently highlighted as a “Legal Rebel” by the ABA Journal in recognition of his influence on legal education and the changing economics and structure of the legal profession. Bill speaks to law firms and legal organizations all over the country, sharing insights on the future of legal services and the results of his empirical research.
is both the Deputy Administrator and the Chief Counsel (DACC) of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois (ARDC). For over 31 years, he has investigated and prosecuted hundreds of charges of lawyer misconduct and has argued dozens of disciplinary cases in the Supreme Court of Illinois. He is a Past President of the National Organization of Bar Counsel (NOBC), the bar association of lawyer regulators. For over 25 years, Mr. Grogan has taught legal ethics, first at the DePaul University College of Law and then at the Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, where he is an Adjunct Professor. He has presented hundreds of speeches, lectures and workshops to law firms, bar associations, corporations and judicial and governmental groups and agencies on various professional responsibility and lawyer regulation topics.
Dais Floyd is University Professor of Law and Ethical Formation. She served as Dean and Professor of Law from 2004 until 2010. Before coming to Mercer she was a member of the faculty at Texas Tech University School of Law from 1990-2004, serving during part of that time as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She was the recipient of several teaching awards at Texas Tech, including the Phi Alpha Delta Professor of the Year Award; the New Professor Excellence in Teaching Award; and the Presidents Excellence in Teaching Award.
Daisy’s teaching and research interests include Civil Procedure, Evidence, Legal Writing, Ethics, and Legal Education. She has a particular interest in the ways in which higher education shapes students’ ethical development and in the possibilities for cross-disciplinary collaboration within higher education. Daisy was named a Carnegie Scholar by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2001 and more recently served as a member of the Carnegie Foundation’s Life of the Mind for Practice Seminar, which focused on the relationship between liberal education and professional education.
Daisy’s work and the findings of the seminar are discussed in the recently-published book, A New Agenda for Higher Education: Shaping a Life of the Mind for Practice (Jossey-Bass 2008). Daisy has been a member of the American Bar Association Presidential Council on Diversity in the Legal Profession and currently serves on the State Bar of Georgia Diversity Committee. She is member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif, is an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Texas Bar Foundation, and the Georgia Lawyers Foundation and is a member of the State Bars of Georgia and Texas.
Tim Floyd is Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Public Service Program. He has published two books: Can a Good Christian Be a Good Lawyer? Homilies, Witnesses, and Reflections and The Lawyer as a Professional, along with numerous articles and book chapters in the areas of legal ethics, law and religion and criminal law. Over the years he has taught courses in legal ethics, criminal law, and lawyering skills.
He also serves as faculty advisor to the Mercer Advocacy Council, the organization that supports the law school’s very successful program in moot court, mock trial, negotiation and client counseling competitions. Tim’s service activities emphasize legal ethics, lawyer professionalism and access to justice issues. He has been a member of the Supreme Court of Georgia Equal Justice Commission, co-chair of the State Bar of Georgia Access to Justice Committee, a member of the National Advisory Committee of Equal Justice Works, chair of the Advisory Board of the Georgia Council for Restorative Justice and member of the Advisory Board of the Georgia Justice Project. While in Texas he chaired the Supreme Court of Texas Lawyer Grievance Oversight Committee, served on the State Bar of Texas Professionalism Committee and the Supreme Court of Texas Access to Justice Commission and was one of the principal drafters of the Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure for lawyers.
After law school Tim clerked for Judge Phyllis Kravitch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and practiced law with Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan. He began his career in legal education in 1982 at the University of Georgia School of Law as Associate Director and then Director of the Legal Aid Clinic. He served fifteen years on the faculty of Texas Tech University School of Law, becoming the J. Hadley Edgar Professor of Law and Co-Director of Clinical Programs. He joined the Mercer faculty in 2006.
has served as dean and professor of law at Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law since 2006. Dennis came to Chase from Washburn University School of Law, where he had served as dean and professor. Under his leadership, NKU/Chase has established the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and the Transactional Law Practice Center. This year NKU Chase opened its Small Business & Nonprofit Law Clinic, the first clinic of its kind in the region. After law school he practiced law in Pittsburgh, PA with the law firm of Kirkpatrick, Lockhart, Johnson & Hutchison. He then joined the faculty at Vermont Law School and later the faculties of Rutgers-Camden School of Law and the District of Columbia School of Law. PDennis served as president, dean, professor of law and founding director of the Entrepreneurial Law Center at Western State University College of Law from 1996-2001. He left Western State in 2001 to become the dean of the Washburn University School of Law. He has co-authored books on directors and officers liability (D&O Liability Handbook, West Group 1994-2011 editions) and proxy rules (Proxy Rules Handbook, West Group 2001-2011 editions). Dennis has published law review articles on topics ranging from managerial liability and Enron to toxic torts and nuisance law. He is the co-chair of the ABA Business Law Section's Legal Education Committee and president-elect of the American Association of Law School's Section on Part-Time Legal Education. He also serves on the advisory board of the American Association of Law School's Deans Section. He has previously served as the co-chair of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Clinical and Skills Education Committee and as a member of the of the Law School Admissions Council Services Committee and LSAC's Programs and Test Development & Research Committee. He is a member of the Salmon P. Chase Inn of Court.
was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1976. John has been admitted to practice in many state and federal courts and is a member of the bars of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. In addition to being a member of the State Bar of Georgia, John is a member of the Atlanta and American bar associations. John is also a member of the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and was elected president of the Lawyers Club in 2002, after serving on its executive committee from 1997. John is also a member of the Old War Horse Lawyers Club. In 2002 John was appointed by the Supreme Court of Georgia to the State Disciplinary Board and in 2005 was elected Chair of the State Disciplinary Board. John practices in the areas of corporate and business litigation, personal injury and corporate law.
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, Avarita 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. She has also been inducted into the Gate City Bar Hall of Fame and received the Spirit of GABWA [Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys] Award, the top honor given by each of those bar associations.
has served as General Counsel for the 40,000-member State Bar of Georgia since 2009. She previously served as Deputy General Counsel of the State Bar, where her primary duties were interpreting the ethics rules for lawyers and prosecuting lawyer discipline cases. She joined the State Bar staff in 1988 after working for six years as a lawyer with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, where she handled civil legal matters for the poor. She was the first African American president of the Atlanta Bar Association and is a past president of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys. She received the Charles Watkins award for distinguished and sustained service to the Atlanta Bar Association in 2004. She was inducted into the Gate City Bar Association Hall of Fame in 2004.. She serves in the American Bar Association House of Delegates and has served on the ABA's Board of Governors.
practiced law in Atlanta with the firm of Alston & Bird for 28 years prior to coming to Emory University School of Law, where he is Associate Dean. He is past president of the State Bar of Georgia, its Younger Lawyer's Division and The Old War Horse Lawyers' Club. He has served on several Georgia Supreme Court commissions dealing with professionalism and lawyer discipline. He is a co-founder of Georgia's legal services program and its IOLTA program. He received the Arthur von Briesen Award which is given annually by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association to one lawyer in private practice for substantial volunteer contributions to the legal assistance movement for the poor. He co-designed Emory's 1L Orientation program which has won the ABA's Gambrell Award for innovation in professionalism programs. He is a fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, as well as the American and Georgia Bar Foundations. He teaches Legal Profession, Banking and Commercial Real Estate Finance.
maintains a general trial practice, focusing on criminal defense and family law. As a member of the State Bar of Georgia, he serves on the Bar's Professionalism Committee (serving as Chairman in 2006 - 2007, 2007- 2008 and 2008 - 2009, 2009 - 2010) and is a life member of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 1992 he received specialized training in Alternative Dispute Resolution and was certified by the Georgia Supreme Court as a Mediator in civil and domestic cases and cases involving domestic violence. In 2003, after further specialized training, he was certified by the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution as an Arbitrator. In 2007 he received an invitation to become a Fellow of the Georgia Lawyers Foundation.
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.
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.
