About Us

    The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 was created by then ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm to perform a thorough review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the U.S. system of lawyer regulation in the context of advances in technology and global legal practice developments.

    Commission Co-Chairs

    Jamie S. Gorelick (Washington, D.C.), is a partner at WilmerHale where she co-chairs the Defense, National Security and Government Contracts Practice Group and chairs the Public Policy and Strategy Practice Group. Ms. Gorelick was one of the longest serving Deputy Attorneys General of the United States, the second highest position in the Department of Justice. In that role, she supervised the litigation and law enforcement divisions of the Department, including the United States Attorneys Offices. Ms. Gorelick arrived at Justice from the Department of Defense, where she was General Counsel. One of Washington's best-known litigators, Ms. Gorelick has represented corporations and individuals in a wide array of problems, particularly in the regulatory and enforcement arenas. She served as President of the District of Columbia Bar from 1992 to 1993.

    Ms. Gorelick was a member of the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the "9/11 Commission"). She also was a member of the CIA's National Security Advisory Panel, President Bush's Review of Intelligence Committee and President Clinton's Advisory Committee to the Presidential Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (which she co-chaired), among others. She serves on the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Institute, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

    A frequent lecturer on corporate governance and business ethics, Ms. Gorelick has authored numerous scholarly articles and co-authored a leading treatise on the maintenance of corporate documents, Destruction of Evidence (Wiley 1983). She taught trial advocacy at the Harvard Law School and has been a guest lecturer at universities across the country. She was a member of Harvard's Board of Overseers and its Overseers' Visiting Committee. She was the 2004 Raytheon Lecturer on Business Ethics at Bentley College. Ms. Gorelick is a member of the Best Lawyers Board of Advisors.

    Michael Traynor (Berkeley, CA), is President Emeritus and Chair of the Council of the American Law Institute. Mr. Traynor also is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, he received the John P. Frank Outstanding Lawyer Award from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Since retiring in 2008 from full-time private law practice in San Francisco (where he was President of the Bar Association of San Francisco), he devotes much of his time to public law and law reform issues and also serves as senior counsel to the law firm of Cobalt LLP in Berkeley. Currently, in addition to chairing the ALI Council and being a member of the ABA House of Delegates, he serves as an adviser to the ALI's project on world trade. He is a member of the boards of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, the Developmental Studies Center, and the Berkeley Community Fund, the Advisory Board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the National Wildlife Federation's President's Advisory Council. He also served on the boards of the Environmental Law Institute, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, now Earthjustice (which he also served as chairman, president, and treasurer), and Sierra Legal Defence of Canada, now Ecojustice. Mr. Traynor received his B.A. (in economics) from the University of California at Berkeley, his J.D. from the Harvard Law School, and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of South Carolina. He served as an adjunct lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and has contributed over 100 articles and comments to law reviews and other professional publications.

    Commission Members

    Stephen Gillers (New York, NY), has been Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law since 1978. He served as Vice Dean from 1999-2004. He holds the Emily Kempin chair. He focuses most of his research and writing on the regulation of the legal profession. His courses include Regulation of Lawyers, Evidence, Media Law (with Stuart Karle), and Law and Literature (with graduate school dean Catharine Stimpson). Professor Gillers has written widely on legal and judicial ethics in law reviews and in the legal and popular press. He has taught legal ethics as a visiting professor at other law schools and has spoken on lawyer regulatory issues at hundreds of events in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including at federal and state judicial conferences, before Congress, law firms, corporate general counsels’ offices, government law offices, ABA meetings, and state and city bar meetings. Professor Gillers is the author of Regulation of Lawyers: Problems of Law and Ethics, a widely used law school casebook first published by Little, Brown (now Aspen) in 1985 and now in its 8'th edition (2009). With Professor Roy Simon (and as of 2008, also Professor Andrew Perlman), he has edited Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards, published annually by Little, Brown, then Aspen, since 1989. He was chair of the Policy Implementation Committee of the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility from 2004-2008, and remains a member. He is also a member of the International Issues Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Following a clerkship with Chief Judge Gus J. Solomon in Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon, Professor Gillers practiced law for nine years in various settings in New York City before joining the NYU Law School faculty. He is often quoted on issues of legal ethics in the legal and popular media.   

    Jeffrey B. Golden (London, United Kingdom), is a Visiting Professor in the Law Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Chairman of The P.R.I.M.E. Finance Foundation in The Hague, and a member of the Foundation’s Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance, and a Director of MFX Solutions, Inc., an industry initiative providing currency hedging for microfinance.  He recently retired from international law firm Allen & Overy, LLP, which he joined as a partner in 1994, after 15 years with the leading Wall Street practice of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He was founder partner of Allen & Overy’s U.S. law practice and senior partner in the firm’s global derivatives practice.  He is a Past Chair of the American Bar Association's Section of International Law, co-chair of its Financial Engineering for Economic Development (FEED) and International Criminal Court task forces, and a former co-chair of its International Securities and Capital Markets and U.S. Lawyers Practicing Abroad Committees. Mr. Golden serves in the ABA House of Delegates and is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the ABA/UNDP International Legal Resource Center, and as Section of International Law Liaison to the ABA Financial Markets Regulatory Reform Task Force.

    Mr. Golden studied at Duke University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Columbia University School of Law, from which he received his J.D. degree with honors in 1978. He is General Editor of the Capital Markets Law Journal (Oxford University Press), a member of the Editorial Board of Derivatives Use, Trading & Regulation, anda trustee of the International Bar Association Foundation. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of Columbia Law School, the Duke Global Capital Markets Center Advisory Board, the World Legal Forum Advisory Board, the International Lawyers for Africa (ILFA) Advisory Committee, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Local Capital Market Development Legal and Regulatory Assessment Advisory Panel.

    William C. Hubbard (Columbia, SC), William C. Hubbard is a partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Columbia, S.C. where he practices in business litigation related to breach of contract, business torts, breach of fiduciary duty claims, unfair practices, and class actions. He serves as chair of the Firm's Business Litigation and Employment Law Group. 

    Mr. Hubbard earned a Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1977 and a Bachelor of Arts in History, magna cum laude, from the University of South Carolina in 1974.  As an undergraduate, Mr. Hubbard recieved the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, the University's highest student award. In 2009, he recieved the University's distinguished Alumni Award.  In 2010, the University awarded Mr. Hubbard its highest recognition, the Honorary Doctor of Laws.

    Mr. Hubbard has long held positions of leadership in the American Bar Association and other law-related organizations. In August 2010, he completed a two-year term as Chair of the ABA House of Delegates, the second highest elected position in the 400,000-member organization. Mr. Hubbard now serves as President of the American Bar Foundation, the nation's leading research institute for the empirical study of law.  He is a past president and current board member of the American Bar Endowment. Mr. Hubbard's previous ABA positions include numerous committee memberships, including six years on the Standing Committee on teh Federal Judiciary, and service as chair of the Young Lawyer's Division, 1987-1988.  

    George W. Jones, Jr (Washington, D.C.), is a partner with Sidley Austin, LLP. Since joining the firm in 1983, Mr. Jones has represented clients in complex commercial and regulatory litigation, involving substantive areas such as antitrust, contracts, employment discrimination, energy, environmental law, fair lending, labor, healthcare policy and products liability. Mr. Jones also advises law firms and in-house law departments on questions of professional responsibility, including state rules of professional conduct and federal reporting obligations prescribed by the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to § 307 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. He has handled internal corporate investigations of employee fraud and embezzlement, and related civil and administrative proceedings. In addition to federal and state court and administrative proceedings, Mr. Jones has participated in alternative dispute resolution proceedings, including both arbitration and mediation.

    Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Jones was a law clerk to Judge Philip W. Tone of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He also served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States for two years, during which time he argued five cases on behalf of the federal government before the United States Supreme Court.

    Linda A. Klein (Atlanta, GA), is managing shareholder of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC and past Chair of the ABA House of Delegates.  Linda has been a member of the House of Delegates since 1998 and represented the State Bar of Georgia in the House.  She was a member of the House Committee on Technology and Communications and past chair of the Committee on Rules and Calendar.  She also chaired the ABA Coalition for Justice and served on the Coordinating Council of the Justice Center.  Linda chaired the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section in 2003-2004 and is a past member of the standing committees on Bar Activities and Services, Delivery of Legal Services, and Publishing Oversight.  She was a 2004 recipient of the Margaret Brent Woman Lawyers of Achievement Award presented by the Commission on Women in the Profession and was the first woman to serve as president of the State Bar of Georgia in 1997-1998.

    Hon. Elizabeth B. Lacy (Richmond, VA), is a Senior Justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia (as of August 2007), and has served on the Court since 1989. She also serves as a mediator with The McCammon Group (2007- present), and as the John Marshall Professor of Judicial Studies at the University of Richmond School of Law (2008- present). Prior to her judicial service, Justice Lacy worked as a lawyer for the Texas Legislative Council (1969-1972), served as Assistant Attorney General and Division Chief for the Texas Attorney General’s Office (1972-1976), and as Deputy Attorney General, Judicial Affairs Division (1982-1985). She also worked for the Virginia State Corporation Commission (1985-1989)

    Justice Lacy received her B.A. from Saint Mary’s College (1966); J.D. from the University of Texas Law School (1969); and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law (1992). She has held numerous positions within the Virginia State Bar including chairing its Board of Governors. She chaired the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, served on the ABA Task Force on International Trade in Legal Services, was a member of the Advisory Board for ABA Central and East European Law Initiatives, and was a member of the ABA Judicial Division Appellate Judges Conference’s Executive Committee. She is a member of the National Association of Women Judges, the Virginia Women’s Attorney Association, the American Judicature Society, the American Law Institute, and the Lewis Powell Inn of Court. She also is a member of the Board of Directors, St. Mary’s College Alumnae Association and a former member of the Education Committee of the Virginia Judicial Conference. Justice Lacy is a former Board of Directors member of the Women Judges Fund for Justice, and she chaired the University of Virginia Advisory Committee for its Masters of Law in the Judicial Process.

    Carolyn B. Lamm (Washington, D.C.), Past President of the American Bar Association is an international trade and litigation lawyer from Washington, D.C.   Ms. Lamm is a partner with White and Case, past president of the District of Columbia Bar Association, and was named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in America by the National Law Journal in 2007. Ms. Lamm served in the ABA House of Delegates from 1982 to 2005, and on the ABA Board of Governors from 2002 to 2005. She is former chair of the ABA Young Lawyers Division, and served on the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, and on numerous committees with the ABA Sections of Litigation, International Law and Business Law.  She is also a council member of the American Law Institute, and a board member of the American Turkish Chamber of Commerce, the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and the American Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., she received her undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. 

    Judith A. Miller (Chevy Chase, Maryland), Judith Miller is an independent consultant who currently serves on the Defense Science Board, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Ethics 20/20, the Beloit College Board of Trustees, the American Law Institute’s Council, and co-chairs the ABA Litigation Section’s Military Pro Bono project, in addition to her service on the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council.  She previously was a Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group from January 2006 to January 2010.  Prior to joining the Bechtel Group, she was a partner with Williams & Connolly LLP in   Her practice there included a wide range of complex civil litigation and business-related criminal litigation, corporate and individual officer counseling, internal investigations, as well as issues affecting the defense industry.  She returned to the firm in January 2000, after having been the then longest serving General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense (1994-99).  She is a graduate, and clerked for Associate Justice Potter Stewart and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Harold Leventhal.  Ms. Miller is a past chair (2007-08) of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation and served on its Executive Committee and Council.  She is also a trustee of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, and has been active on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security; the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age; and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Security and Prosperity.  Ms. Miller is a recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Bronze Palm to that Medal. She was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree by , and was the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia 2006 Woman Lawyer of the Year.

    Hon. Kathryn A. Oberly (Washington, D.C.), was appointed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 2009, by President George W. Bush. She attended Vassar College from 1967 to 1969, and, after transferring to the University of Wisconsin, earned her B.A. in Political Science (with Honors) in 1971. In 1973, she received her law degree cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she was Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review.

    Judge Oberly served as a law clerk to the late Honorable Donald P. Lay of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and later moved to the District of Columbia, where she served as an appellate lawyer in the Land and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and then as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. She entered private practice in 1986 as a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Mayer, Brown & Platt. In 1991, she joined Ernst & Young’s Washington office as an Associate General Counsel, in charge of the firm’s appellate and special litigation. In 1994, she was appointed Vice Chair and General Counsel of Ernst & Young, a post she held until her appointment to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Among other civic and professional activities, Judge Oberly is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute.

    Roberta Cooper Ramo (Albuquerque, NM), a partner with Modrall Sperling, concentrates her practice in the areas of mediation, arbitration, business law, real estate, probate and estate planning. She has particular experience in working with large corporations on strategic and long-range planning. Mrs. Ramo was elected President of the American Bar Association in 1995-96, the first woman in history to head the world’s largest organization of lawyers, and became the first woman president of The American Law Institute in May 2008. In February 2003, the United States Senate appointed her to co-chair the committee to review and make suggestions for change of the United States Olympic Committee. She is Chair of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative, serves on panels for the American Arbitration Association, the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution's National Panel of Distinguished Neutrals, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Santa Fe Opera and of Think New Mexico, a non-partisan think tank. In 2000, she was made an honorary member of the Bar of England and Wales, and of Gray's Inn. She is a Fellow of both the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and of the American Bar Foundation. She served as a Regent of the University of New Mexico from 1989-1995 and as President of the Board of Regents from 1991-1993.

    Herman J. Russomanno (Miami, FL), is a partner in the firm of Russomanno & Borello, P.A. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University and received his J.D. from the Samford University Cumberland School of Law. Mr. Russomanno clerked for a United States Federal District Court Judge and then served as a law clerk for an Associate Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. He is Board Certified as a Civil Trial Lawyer by The Florida Bar and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and chaired the Florida Bar Civil Trial Certification Committee. He has 30 years experience in personal injury/wrongful death, medical malpractice, class action, products liability and complex commercial litigation.

    Mr. Russomanno is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and the International Society of Barristers. He is a past president of The Florida Bar, the Florida Board of Trial Advocates, the Dade County Trial Lawyers Association, the Dade County Bar Association and ABOTA-Miami Chapter. He serves in the ABA House of Delegates, ATLA’s Board of Governors and on the Board of the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers. He is the recipient of the Pursuit of Justice Award (ABA Tort, Trial and Insurance Practice Section), the Justice Harry Lee Anstead Professionalism Award (Dade County Trial Lawyers Association), the B.J. Masterson Award for Professionalism (Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers), and the Florida Trial Lawyer of the Year (American Board of Trial Advocates). He has continually been selected in the Best Lawyers in America in both personal injury and commercial law, and has been an adjunct professor of law teaching trial advocacy since 1984.

    Theodore J. Schneyer (Tucson, AZ), is the Milton O. Riepe Professor of Law at the , James E. Rogers College of Law. He teaches courses on the legal profession and co-authored a textbook on the subject entitled, The Lawyer in Modern Society (2d ed. 1976). Much of his research concerns the regulation of law practice in the United States. Representative articles include “Professional Discipline for Law Firms?,” 77 Cornell L. Rev. 1 (1991); “Multidisciplinary Practice, Professional Regulation, and the Anti-Interference Principle in Legal Ethics, 84 Minn. L. Rev. 1469 (2000); “Regulatory Controls on Large Law Firms,” 43 Ariz. L. Rev. 593 (2002) (with G. Hazard, Jr.); “An Interpretation of Recent Developments in the Regulation of Law Practice,” 30 Okla. City L. Rev. 559 (2005); and “The Organized Bar and the Collaborative Law Movement,” 50 Ariz. L. Rev.289 (2008). Professor Schneyer is a member of the ABA and its Center for Professional Responsibility, and the California State Bar (inactive).

    Carole B. Silver (Bloomington, Indiana), is Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and Director of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, which generates data on students’ educational experiences during law school. Her research focuses on globalization as it relates to legal practice, legal education and professional regulation. Prior to joining the Indiana faculty, Professor Silver was the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law Center. Earlier, she was on the faculty at Northwestern University Law School, where she taught a seminar on globalization and the legal profession, as well as courses on business associations, securities regulation, and international securities regulation and comparative corporate governance. She began her career as an associate in the corporate and securities area at Sidley Austin, and with a clerkship for the late Judge Jesse Eschbach of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Professor Silver’s most recent law review articles focus on globalization strategies of U.S.-based law firms, international legal education and the careers of transnational lawyers, and the ethics of outsourcing legal services offshore.

    Frederic S. Ury (Fairfield, CT), is a founding partner of the law firm of Ury & Moskow, LLC in . He earned his Juris Doctorate from Suffolk University 1977 and his B.S. Degree with highest distinction from Babson College in 1974. He has been a member of the Connecticut Bar since 1977 and the New York Bar since 1989. He is admitted in the Federal District Court in Connecticut and New York, the 2 nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He is a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer who for 32 years he has concentrated his practice in criminal and civil trial practice. He is a frequent arbitrator and mediator. Mr. Ury was formerly the Chairman of the Litigation Section of the Connecticut Bar Association and Editor-in-Chief of the Litigation Section Newsletter. He was President of the Connecticut Bar Association in 2004-2005. He is a frequent lecturer to various bar associations around the country on the Future of the Legal Profession and has lectured about civil procedure to Connecticut attorneys for over 12 years. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Litigation Section, the Civil Rules Committee, the Chief Justice’s Civil Justice Commission, The Public Trust and Confidence Task Force and the CBA Bench Bar Committee. He is presently Co-Chair of the Attorney Trust Account Defalcation Task Force. In 2007, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Bar Foundation and has been a member of the James Cooper Fellows since 2005. Mr. Ury has been active for the past 6 years in the National Conference of Bar Presidents. He served three years on the Executive Council of that organization and is presently Treasurer of the Council. He was a member of the ABA House of Delegates from 2004-2009.

    Hon. Gerald W. VandeWalle (Bismarck, ND), is Chief Justice of the North Dakota Supreme Court. Chief Justice VandeWalle is a former first Assistant Attorney General of North Dakota. He has been a member of the North Dakota Supreme Court since 1978 and Chief Justice since January 1, 1993. Chief Justice VandeWalle holds a B.S.C. and J.D. magna cum laude from the University of North Dakota where he was editor-in-chief of the North Dakota Law Review. He is a member of the Order of the Coif. He chaired the North Dakota Judicial Conference from 1985-87, received the North Dakota State Bar Association Distinguished Service Award in June 1998, served as President of the Conference of Chief Justices from 2000-2001, and was appointed by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist to the Federal/State Jurisdiction Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Chief Justice VandeWalle also chaired the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar from 2001-2002 and served as Jurist-in-Residence at Georgetown University Law Center in October 2002. He also was inducted into the Warren E. Burger Society in October 2002. Chief Justice VandeWalle is the recipient of the 2003 Paul C. Reardon Award, the 2008 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Eighth Circuit, and ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar 2009 Robert J. Kutak Award.

    Liaisons Appointed to the Commission by the ABA President

    Donald B. Hilliker (Chicago, IL), is of counsel in the office of the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery, LLP. He has represented a wide-range of clients in complex commercial litigation with a special emphasis on representation of lawyers and law firms in legal malpractice matters. He served from 1978 to 1995 as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Professional Responsibility, which drafted the original Illinois Code of Professional Responsibility and its successor, the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. He was a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility from 1997 to 2003 and was its chair for two years. Most recently, he was a member of the ABA Commission to Evaluate the Model Code of Judicial Conduct.

    He currently is Chair of Coordinating Council of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. Mr. Hilliker is a member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a director and former president of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law in its trial and ethics in advocacy program.

    Robert E. Lutz (Los Angeles, CA), is a Professor of Law at Southwestern University School of Law in , where he teaches international law, international commercial law and international dispute-resolution. Professor Lutz is past chair (2001-2002) of the ABA Section of International Law (SIL), immediate past chair of the AABA Task Force on International Trade in Legal Services, and is Co-chair of the Indo-U.S. Trade Policy Forum’s Working Group on Legal Services. He recently served as the ABA representative to the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA), is a Lifetime Member of the American Law Institute, a member of Pacific Council on International Policy (affiliate of the Council on Foreign Relations), and a Lifetime Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He arbitrates public international and private international commercial disputes, actively serves on NAFTA bi-national arbitration panels and is a listed panelist for the World Trade Organization. Professor Lutz is also a member of the NAFTA Advisory Committee on Private Commercial Disputes and of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. He received his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and his B.A. from the University of Southern California. He has done post-graduate work at Columbia University School of Law (Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law), the Harvard Law School, the University of Munich’s Institute for International Law (as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow), and MIT.

    Philip H. Schaeffer (New York, NY), has been General Counsel of White & Case, LLP for over ten years and was formerly a senior partner in the firm’s litigation department. During his almost fifty years as a practicing lawyer in New York, he argued appeals before the highest appellate courts of New York, Connecticut and Delaware and was a lead counsel in numerous trials involving constitutional, real estate investment, intellectual property and commercial matters.

    He is a past and present member of the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of (“Citibar”) and its Committee on Professional Responsibility. He is also a past and present member of the Professional Ethics Committee of New York Lawyers’ Association (“NYCLA”) and its Ethics Institute. He was recently appointed to the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and to the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct (“COSAC”). Mr. Schaeffer has participated in numerous programs dealing with the professional responsibility of lawyers including those sponsored or held by the Practicing Law Institute, Citibar, NYCLA and ABA. As General Counsel of White & Case, Mr. Schaeffer acts as supervisor of the Firm’s professional responsibility training, advice and representation, involving over 2,000 lawyers and more than 20 countries.

    John Skilton (Madison, WI), is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a Member of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, a Member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, a Life Member of the American Law Institute, and a Life Member of the American Bar Foundation.  Mr. Skilton has served as the ABA Wisconsin State Delegate (2010-2012); as Chair, ABA Consortium on Legal Services and the Public (2000-2002); as Chair, ABA Standing Committee on Delivery of Legal Services (1997-2000); as President, State Bar of Wisconsin (1995-1996); as President, Seventh Circuit Bar (1985-1986); as a Board Member, American Inns of Court Foundation (1996-1998); as a Co-Chair, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (2003-2005); and as President, Wisconsin Bar Foundation (1996-1998).  He was Chair of the Wisconsin Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and was a member of the Governor’s International Trade Council (Wisconsin), and a member of the Wisconsin Legislative Council (Funding of the Justice System Committee).  In 2003, he received the Wisconsin Equal Justice Fund’s Howard Eisenberg Lifetime Achievement Award; in 2005, he received the Dane County Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Lifetime Achievement Award; and in 2007, he received the Lawyers’ Committee’s Whitney North Seymour Award.

    Commission Reporters

    Andrew M. Perlman, Chief Reporter (Boston, MA), is a professor at Suffolk University Law School, where he teaches professional responsibility, civil procedure, and federal courts. He has authored a number of articles about legal ethics and, since 2009, has been a co-author of the widely used book, Regulations of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards, with Professors Stephen Gillers and Roy Simon. He is also a co-author of a civil procedure case book and a co-contributor to a legal ethics blog, www.legalethicsforum.com, which has been named three times by the American Bar Association Journal as one of the top 100 law-related blogs in the country. Professor Perlman is also a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct, which reviews issues and proposals concerning the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct. Prior to joining the Suffolk faculty, Professor Perlman was an associate-in-law at Columbia Law School, where he conducted research on professional responsibility issues, taught legal research and writing, and received his LL.M. Professor Perlman clerked for a federal district court judge in Chicago and practiced as a litigation associate with the Chicago firm of Schiff Hardin & Waite. He is an honors graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.

    Paul D. Paton (Sacramento, CA) 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). He holds master’s and doctoral degrees in law from Stanford Law School, and an M.Phil in international relations from Cambridge. His work on legal ethics and professional responsibility issues over the last decade has appeared in both the United States and in Canada, notably on the role of corporate counsel, on comparative approaches to lawyer regulation, on multidisciplinary practice, and on lawyers in the Enron scandal. He has co-authored a leading casebook on Business Associations and his article on comparative regulation was selected for inclusion in the ABA Journal of the Professional Lawyer Special Canons of Ethics Centennial Celebration edition. He was twice named a Fellow of the US National Institute on Teaching Ethics and Professionalism, and has been Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee since 2009. He is a member of the Academic Council of the Centre on the Legal Profession at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and was a Fellow of the Salzburg Seminar, and a Fellow of the Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession at Stanford. Prior to entering the academy full-time in 2004, Paul practiced as in-house counsel to a major global accounting firm, as Justice and Social Policy Advisor to the Premier of Ontario, and as commercial litigation partner for one of Canada’s leading law firms. He clerked for the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, and was top all-round graduate in the Faculty of Arts and Science of the University of Toronto in 1988.

    Anthony Sebok (New York, NY), Anthony Sebok is an expert on mass torts, litigation finance, comparative tort law and legal philosophy. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and he has a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. After completing law school, he clerked for Chief Judge Edward N. Cahn of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Cardozo in 2007, Professor Sebok was the Centennial Professor of Law and the associate dean for research at Brooklyn Law School, where he taught for 15 years. He has authored numerous articles about litigation finance and mass restitution litigation involving tobacco, handguns and slavery reparations. Professor Sebok is currently writing a book with Mauro Bussani of the University of Trieste on comparative tort law that will be published by Oxford University Press. Sebok is the author of Legal Positivism in American Jurisprudence, articles and essays on jurisprudence, and is the coeditor of The Philosophy of Law: A Collection of Essays. His casebook, Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress, which he coauthored with John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky, is used at several leading law schools. Professor Sebok is frequently quoted in the national media on timely legal issues, such as the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund.

    W. Bradley Wendel (Ithaca, NY), is a professor at Cornell Law School, where he teaches professional responsibility and torts. He is a graduate of Rice University and Duke Law School, and received an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Columbia Law School. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, he clerked for Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was a litigation associate at a large law firm in Seattle, and was an assistant and an associate professor at Washington and Lee Law School. Professor Wendel is the author of Lawyers and Fidelity to Law, a co-editor (with Geoffrey Hazard, Susan Koniak, Roger Cramton, and George Cohen), of The Law and Ethics of Lawyering, the author of Professional Responsibility: Examples and Explanations, and a co-editor (with Susan Martyn and Larry Fox) of a professional responsibility rules supplement.

    Commission Counsel

    Ellyn S. Rosen (Chicago, IL), is a Senior Counsel at the American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility. She serves as co-counsel to the ABA Standing Committee on Professional Discipline, whose mission is to assist the judiciary and the bar in the development, coordination, and strengthening of disciplinary enforcement throughout the United States, including the assessment of the regulatory ramifications of global legal practice developments. In this capacity she liaises with the Conference of Chief Justices, National Organization of Bar Counsel, and the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. Ms. Rosen also serves as co-counsel to the ABA Task Force on International Trade in Legal Services. She is a member of the International Bar Association’s Professional Ethics Committee, and speaks frequently at international, state and local bar programs regarding issues relating to the regulation of the legal profession.

    Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Rosen was a senior litigation counsel with the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. She co-chaired the Chicago Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section Professional Responsibility Committee (1997-1999), and for the past ten years has served as an investigator and interviewer for the Chicago Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Evaluations. The Alliance evaluates and rates candidates seeking judgeships in Illinois via appointment or election.  In 1989, Ms. Rosen received her J.D. with honors from the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana.

    Chair's Message

    By Jamie S. Gorelick and Michael Traynor, Commission on Ethics 20/20 co-chairs

    ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm created the Ethics 20/20 Commission to perform a thorough review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the U.S. system of lawyer regulation in the context of advances in technology and global legal practice developments. Our challenge over the next several years is to study these issues and, with 20/20 vision, propose policy recommendations that will allow lawyers to better serve their clients, the courts and the public now and well into the future. We look forward to engaging in this exciting, challenging, and important undertaking.

    Within the last ten years, technological advances and globalization have impacted lawyers’ relationships with clients and among themselves. U.S. lawyers and law firms are engaged in efforts to increase their access to the legal services markets of other countries, while lawyers from other countries are seeking increased access to the U.S. legal services market. Because of the significant number of U.S. lawyers and law firms with offices and clients abroad, practice and regulatory developments in other countries have practical, ethical, and regulatory implications that require consideration. U.S. ethics rules pose challenges to lawyers and law firms from other countries too, raising choice of law and other issues.

    Clients and their legal needs have evolved. Lawyers can now serve clients ranging from individuals, to multi-state and multinational corporations in both civil and criminal situations and inside and outside U.S. borders. Representing clients in cross-border and international transactions and litigation challenges lawyers and their clients in new ways. Clients also face new vulnerabilities when they obtain legal forms and documents via the internet that may not have been drafted in the U.S. or by lawyers, and that are not tailored to their particular legal needs.

    The Commission members represent a broad spectrum of expertise in U.S. and global ethics rules, lawyer regulation, globalization, and technology. They come from all segments of the legal profession. Our work will be guided by three principles: protecting the public, preserving the profession’s core values, and maintaining a strong, independent, and self-regulating legal profession.

    The process by which the Commission conducts its work is open and transparent. We will provide all who are interested with opportunities to present their perspectives to the Commission. This web site is one tool by which you can provide your input and learn more about the Commission’s work, global legal practice developments and advances in technology that impact the legal profession and clients. We have also created a list serve that you can sign up for and receive periodic updates on the issues being presented to the Commission and its responses, notices of the Commission’s meetings, public hearings, and educational programs, and ultimately its draft proposals for comment. We value the views and expertise of the many and diverse individuals and entities who can contribute to our work as it moves forward.

    The Commission expects its work to take three years.

    • Year one will consist of research, outreach, and analysis of information regarding critical issues identified in each of the three major subject areas;
    • Year two will focus on development of proposed policies, principles and, if necessary, model rules for wide circulation and comment; and
    • Year three will involve continued vetting of proposals and presentation.