CHICAGO, March 2, 2022 ‑‑ Lucian T. Pera, a Memphis, Tennessee, attorney long active in the American Bar Association, is the 2022 recipient of the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award, one of the top ethics honors of the association. The award honors an individual whose contributions in the professional responsibility field reflect the highest level of dedication to legal professionalism.
Pera, a partner at Adams and Reese LLP, is recognized nationally for his work on ethics in the legal profession as well as media law and transparency issues in government, particularly in Tennessee where he served as president of the Tennessee Open Government Coalition. He has written extensively about ethics and lawyer regulation nationally and for the ABA, including an ethics column for Law Practice, a magazine of the ABA Law Practice Division.
Within the ABA, Pera has served as treasurer, as a member of the House of Delegates, as chair of the Center for Professional Responsibility (CPR) and as an editorial board member of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct, among other positions.
“We refer to Tennessee as the Volunteer state, and Lucian is a modern times example of what that means within the context of significant contributions to the organized bar, our judicial system and the public we serve,” wrote a colleague in support of his nomination.
The award is named in honor of Michael Franck, the late director of the State Bar of Michigan and long-time champion of improvements in lawyer regulation in the public interest. It will be presented to Pera on June 3, at the National Conference on Professional Responsibility in Baltimore, Maryland.
The CPR Coordinating Council, which consists of the chairs of the committees and commissions that are housed within the center, made the selection.
The ABA is the largest voluntary association of lawyers in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.