New Commission Members
The Commission on IOLTA welcomes new chair Hon. James S. Hill and members Richard Tate and Jayne Tyrrell for the 2014–2015 bar year.
Hon. James S. Hill is a District Judge for the South Central District in North Dakota. Prior to becoming a district judge, he practiced at the law firm of Zuger Kirmis and Smith in Bismarck, North Dakota, concentrating on civil litigation and professional malpractice defense. From 1976–1981, Judge Hill served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of North Dakota.
Judge Hill was recently elected to serve as the North Dakota state delegate in the ABA House of Delegates. In 2013, he completed a three– year term as a member of the ABA Board of Governors, during which time he served as the Board's liaison to the Commission on IOLTA. Since 2008, he has served on the Board of Directors for the North Dakota Bar Foundation, which administers IOLTA funds in the state. He is a former President (1990) and Board of Governors member (1987–1988) of the State Bar Association of North Dakota and has served terms as a member of its Ethics Committee, chair and member of its Inquiry Committee West, and chair and member of its Commission for Continuing Legal Education. Judge Hill was the sole attorney member of the North Dakota Judicial Conduct Commission from 1998–2004, serving as chair in his final year on the Commission. In 2005, he received the Professionalism Award from the 8th Circuit—American Inns of Court. In 1997, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the State Bar Association of North Dakota.
Richard Tate is a partner in the firm of Tate Moerer & King, LLP in Richmond, Texas. He has twenty–five years of litigation experience, and his firm represents clients in a wide–variety of business litigation matters, including partnership disputes, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, construction defects, bankruptcy, conspiracy, and securities fraud.
In 1999, Mr. Tate was appointed by the Supreme Court of Texas to serve as Chair of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, a position in which he continues to serve. From 1993–1999, he served on the Board of Directors for the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. Additionally, he has served as a member of the Texas Access to Justice Commission since 2009. He is a former President of the Fort Bend County Bar Association. He is also a member of the Litigation Sections of the ABA and the State Bar of Texas. Mr. Tate was named one of the Texas Super Lawyers by Thomson Reuters five years in a row, from 2007–2011. In 2011, he was selected to membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates.
Jayne Tyrrell is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts IOLTA Committee, where she has served for almost twenty–five years. She is a former President of the National Association of IOLTA Programs (NAIP) and a member of the Steering Committee for the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. Ms. Tyrrell is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association's Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section Council as well as its Access to Justice Section Council (serving as chair from 2010–2011). She also co–chairs the Boston Bar Association's Task Force on Expanding the Right to Counsel in Civil Cases and served as a member of its Delivery of Legal Services Committee from 1992–1994. She was Vice President of the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts in 2004 and served on its Board of Directors until 2008. In 2004, she served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Special Committee on Self–Represented Litigants.
In 2012, Ms. Tyrrell received the Leila J. Robinson Award from the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Bar Association honored her with its President's Award in 2010, and the Massachusetts Bar Foundation bestowed on her its Friend of Justice Award in 2004.