CHICAGO, April 16, 2025 — Myles V. Lynk, an emeritus professor of law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and dean of ASU’s Emeritus College, is the 2025 recipient of the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award, one of the American Bar Association’s top ethics honors. The award recognizes an individual whose contributions reflect the highest level of dedication to legal professionalism.
Lynk is nationally recognized as a leader in legal ethics and professional responsibility through his work as a lawyer, law professor, disciplinary counsel and tireless contributor to the ABA. His leadership within the ABA, his academic contributions as a legal scholar and mentor to law students and young lawyers and his dedication to improving the legal profession have left an indelible mark on the legal community.
Throughout his long and distinguished career, Lynk has committed himself to counseling, teaching and enforcing the Rules of Professional Conduct and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers. Immediately after law school Lynk clerked for Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. He later served as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, as an assistant director on President Jimmy Carter’s White House Domestic Policy Staff and as an assistant special counsel for the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. After moving to private practice in Washington, D.C., he served in numerous roles with the D.C. Bar, including the D.C. Bar’s president from 1996-1997.
In 2000, Lynk made his transition to academia. He began his academic career as the first Peter Kiewit Foundation Professor of Law and the Legal Profession at ASU, holding that role for 20 years. He has worked on updating the rules of professional conduct of the Navajo Nation Bar Association and in 2018, lectured on legal ethics to Navy and Marine Corps JAG officers at the Naval Justice School. In addition to his academic work at ASU, Lynk co-chaired the State Bar of Arizona’s Task Force on Multijurisdictional Practice, lectured on ethics and leadership to the State Bar’s Bar Leadership Institute and in 2024 was appointed by the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court to that court’s Task Force on Alternative Business Structures.
Lynk has served in numerous leadership capacities within the ABA, including as chair of the Standing Committee on Professional Discipline from 2010-2013 and chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility from 2014-2017. More recently, Lynk was instrumental in proposing the change to the ABA Model Rule for Registration of In-House Counsel, which was adopted by the House of Delegates to remove a troubling ambiguity between that rule and Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5.
The award will be presented May 29 during the 2025 ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility at The Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia.
(A picture of Lynk is available upon request.)
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