Ethics and Professionalism in the Digital Age

The 9th Annual Georgia Symposium on Ethics and Professionalism
Walter F. George School of Law
Mercer University
1021 Georgia Ave.
Macon, Georgia

Biographies of Speakers

Monroe H. Freedman

Monroe Freedman is a Professor of Law and the former Dean of Hofstra Law School, and a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law Center. Also, for the past thirty years, he has lectured annually on Lawyers’ Ethics at Harvard Law School.

Professor Freedman has received the ABA’s highest award for professionalism, in recognition of “a lifetime of original and influential scholarship in the field of lawyers’ ethics.” Professor Ronald Rotunda has written, “If we had to pick the one person who first created modern legal ethics as a serious academic specialty, it would be Monroe Freedman,” and Lawrence Fox has called him “the conscience of our profession.”

His latest book is Understanding Lawyers’ Ethics (3d ed., 2004) (with Abbe Smith).

Jason R. Baron

Jason R. Baron has served since the year 2000 as Director of Litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration. Between 1988 and 1999, Mr. Baron served as trial attorney and senior counsel at the Department of Justice, defending the government’s interests in complex federal court litigation, including in cases involving the preservation of White House email. He currently represents NARA on the Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Records Retention and Production, where he is member of the Steering Committee and Editor-in-Chief of the Sedona Best Practices Commentary on the Use of Search and Information Retrieval Methods in E-Discovery,available at www.thesedonaconference.org. He also is a founding co-coordinator of the National Institute of Standards and Technology TREC legal track (see http://trec-legal.umiacs.umd.edu), a multi-year international information retrieval project devoted to evaluating search issues in a legal context, as well as co-organizer of the First and Second International DESI Workshops (Discovery of Electronically Stored Information), held in Palo Alto in 2007, and in London in 2008, bringing together scientists, academics and lawyers to discuss e-discovery issues. Mr. Baron has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia, where he taught cyberspace law, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland’s Graduate College of Information Studies. He also presently serves on the Georgetown University Law Center Advanced E-Discovery Institute Advisory Board. He is a co-author of the law review article, Information Inflation: Can the Legal System Adapt?, available online at the Richmond Journal of Law and Technology. Among his honors, Mr. Baron was recently named a recipient of the 2008 Fed 100 Award, sponsored by Federal Computer Week, for his e-discovery related advocacy. Mr. Baron received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Wesleyan University, and his J.D. from the Boston University School of Law. 

The Honorable John M. Facciola

Magistrate Judge Facciola was appointed a United States Magistrate Judge in August 1997. He received an A.B. in 1966, cum laude, from the College of the Holy Cross and a J.D. in 1969 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, Magistrate Judge Facciola served as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan from 1969 to 1973, and was in private practice in the District of Columbia from 1974 to 1982. He joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1982 and served as Chief of the Special Proceedings section from 1989 until his appointment as Magistrate Judge. Magistrate Judge Facciola is an adjunct professor of law at Catholic University. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the Board of Governors of the John Carroll Society.

Chilton D. Varner

Chilton Varner became King & Spalding’s first female litigation partner in 1983. She is the senior partner in the firm’s product liability practice, which has been named one of the top three in the country by The American Lawyer and one of the top six by Chambers. In 2004, Former Chief Justice Rehnquist named Ms. Varner to the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and she was recently re-appointed to a second term until 2010 by Chief Justice Roberts. Ms. Varner was named to the National Law Journal’s list of the top 10 women litigators in the country in 2001. Ms. Varner is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and currently serves on its Board of Regents. She serves on the Case Selection Committee of the Product Liability Advisory Council. Ms. Varner has served as national trial and appellate counsel for a variety of corporate clients, including her work in products liability, business litigation, regulatory investigations and counseling on questions of attorney-client privilege and work product. 

Ralph C. Losey

Ralph C. Losey is a shareholder in the Orlando office of Akerman & Senterfitt, P.A., where he heads the firm's national electronic discovery practice group. He is the author if the ABA's feature book on e-discovery for 2008, e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases. Ralph is also the author of the popular multi-media blog e-Discovery Team. He has written extensively in this area, including the chapter on "Metadata" in West-Thompson's new book, E-Discovery, a Report and Guide to the New Rules (January 2008). Last year Ralph also wrote a law review article on the mathematics underlying e-discovery: HASH: The New Bates Stamp, 12 Journal of Technology Law & Policy 1 (June 2007). 

Ralph has practiced commercial and employment litigation since 1980 and has over 70 published opinions. Ralph's work at Akerman Senterfitt is now limited to electronic discovery. He supervises the e-discovery aspects of major litigation handled by his firm and serves as national e-counsel to coordinate the discovery work of local counsel. He also assists large corporate and government clients to prepare for litigation by helping them to organize and operate their own internal e-discovery teams. His team related services include advice on: team organization and budgeting; records retention policies; litigation hold procedures; ESI identification, retrieval, search and analysis; information management; software; hardware; and, vendor selection.

Ralph has also been an avid computer user and technologist since 1978. He has been involved with electronic discovery since the 1990s, and is now an active member of The Sedona Conference and other e-discovery specialty groups, and regularly lectures on e-discovery subjects. Ralph was one of the first attorneys in the country with an Internet website, which he still maintains at FloridaLawFirm.com. He was certified by The Florida Bar as a mediator of computer law disputes in 1989. He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1973 and his J.D. from the University of Florida School of Law in 1979.

The Honorable David A. Baker

David A. Baker serves as United States Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Florida. Judge Baker is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia Law School.

William F. Hamilton

William F. Hamilton is Board Certified in Business Litigation and Intellectual Property by The Florida Bar. His work includes complex business litigation in the areas of contract, software, and technology disputes, intellectual property (copyright, trademark, and trade secrets law), e-commerce, data security, telecommunications, trade regulation and unfair trade practices. Mr. Hamilton currently serves on Holland & Knight's Technology Committee, responsible for the firm's national and international telephony and data communications systems and networks, and was formerly Holland & Knight's Technology Partner. As the firm's Technology Partner, Mr. Hamilton was responsible for the design and launch of the firm's initial Web site, intranet, and client extranet. Mr. Hamilton currently serves as co-head of the firm's E-Discovery practice and teaches Electronic Discovery as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. Mr. Hamilton is a featured speaker of the Holland & Knight Institute on Electronic Discovery and Litigation.

Micah Buchdahl

Micah Buchdahl is an attorney focused on assisting law firms with business development initiatives, while maintaining an active law practice. He is Chair-Elect of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section, and creator of the ABA’s inaugural Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference. Micah is a faculty member of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, where he has taught law marketing ethics courses annually for nearly a decade. Based in Moorestown, New Jersey, he is president of HTMLawyers, Inc., a law marketing company. Micah draws vision and ideas from a well of career experience. He worked in the Philadelphia Municipal Court as a mediator and arbitrator. He was formerly associate corporate counsel with the Philadelphia Flyers and Spectacor, as well as director of NBA Photos, a marketing division of the National Basketball Association. With HTMLawyers, he has worked with law firms of all shapes and sizes on initiatives ranging from business development planning to audits of existing marketing efforts, client surveys, law firm retreats and CLE programming. He originated the title of “Internet Marketing Attorney” in 1997, and is know internationally for his biannual review of law firm web sites. Prior to law school, he worked in marketing and public relations functions within the National Hockey League and Major Indoor Soccer League. He also served as a journalist for The Baltimore Sun. Micah attended Temple University both as an undergraduate (B.A., journalism, magna cum laude, 1985) and later for Law School (J.D., Dean's List, class president, 1991). He is admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.

Paula J. Frederick

Paula Frederick is Deputy General Counsel for the State Bar of Georgia, where her primary duties are interpreting the ethics rules for lawyers, prosecuting lawyer discipline cases, and serving as managing attorney for her 10-lawyer office. Ms. Frederick came to the Bar in 1988 after working for six years as a lawyer with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, where she handled civil legal matters for poor people. 

A native of Riverside, California, Ms. Frederick attended Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in May 1979. She is a 1982 graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Law.

Ms. Frederick was the first African American president of the Atlanta Bar Association, which at over 6,000 members is the largest voluntary bar association in the southeast. Her focus as president was on pro bono projects and programs to benefit the Atlanta community. She was president of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys in 1998 and is also an active member of the Gate City Bar Association and the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers.

Ms. Frederick has been involved in the American Bar Association since 1987. She currently serves as Chair of the ABA’s Diversity Center and is a past chair of the Standing Committee on Professional Discipline. She is an active member of the General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division and serves in the House of Delegates of the ABA.

In Atlanta, Ms. Frederick has been a member of the Boards of Directors of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, the Georgia Legal Services Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. She served on the City of Atlanta Board of Ethics from 1997 through 1999.

Ms. Frederick is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell®. She was a 2004 inductee into the Gate City Bar Association Hall of Fame, and she recently received the Charles Watkins Award for distinguished and sustained service to the Atlanta Bar Association. She was the 2002 recipient of the Kessler Award from the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers. In 2001 she was honored with a leadership award from the Emory Law School Public Interest Committee and a community service award from the Black American Law Students Association at the Georgia State University School of Law. In 1995 she was State Bar of Georgia Employee of the Year.

Diane Karpman

Diane specializes in the defense of lawyers in attorney discipline and regulatory proceedings before the State Bar Court, and ethics litigation support. She is an authority in the areas of attorney ethics and standards of professional care. Diane has been appointed to the California Attorney Civility Task Force (2006-2008); ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism (2006-2008); ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct, Editorial Board (2000-2006), Chair (2006); ABA House of Delegates (2004-2008). Her bar memberships and activities include the National Organization of Bar Counsel (2001-2008); ABA Center for Professional Responsibility Publications Board; ABA Lawyers Responsibility for Client Protection (Standing Committee 1996); Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (Past-President, 2000). Diane was also on the Members Consultant Group for the ALI Restatement of the Law of Lawyers, Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation (1997-2008). She was appointed Los Angeles Superior Court Legal Ethics Consultant (2001-2006) and named Western State University College of Law Alumni of the Year (2004). Diane is also a fellow of the American Bar Association and State Bar of California.

Jack Sammons

Professor Sammons is the Griffin B. Bell Professor of Law at the Walter F. George School of Law, Mercer University, where, in addition to teaching for thirty years, he has also served as Director of Clinical Education, Associate Dean, and Asst. Vice President for Finance. A graduate of the universities of Georgia, Duke, and Antioch, he has done post graduate work in professional ethics at the University of Nebraska under the guidance of Professor Robert Audi.

Professor Sammons is the author of Legal Professionalism, published by the Carolina Academic Press, and over thirty articles, several videos, poems, and one commissioned play on the subjects of legal ethics, professional ethics, legal history, legal education, freedom of speech, and law and religion. His most recent publications include: Justice as Play; Censoring Samba: An Aesthetic Justification for Freedom of Speech; A Rhetorician’s View on Religious Speech in Civic Argument; Parables and Pedagogy; Brainerd Currie (entry for the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law); and"Cheater!": The Central Moral Admonition of Legal Ethics, Games, Lusory Attitudes, Internal Perspectives, and Justice.

A frequent speaker at law schools and at continuing legal education programs, Professor Sammons has recently presented papers at University of Granada, Oxford University, University of Arkansas, University of Notre Dame, Baylor Law School, Stetson Law School, and Campbell University.

A founding member of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, he has served as Vice Chair of the Georgia Formal Advisory Opinion Board, as a member of the Georgia Judicial Campaign Ethics Committee, the Georgia/ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Committee, and the Board of Directors of the National Professionalism Website. He has also served as a consultant on ethical issues to numerous law firms and currently serves as a consultant to the ABA Best Practices Commission as well as to several law related commissions in Georgia and as Vice Chair of the Georgia Task Force on Lawyer Advertising.

Carolyn Southerland

Carolyn has more than 20 years experience as a commercial litigator, handling complex matters involving contract disputes, patent infringement, professional malpractice, and energy-related matters. She also has extensive experience in representing clients in matters before a variety of regulatory agencies. She recently left the practice of law to enter the world of consulting on electronic discovery issues with the Huron Consulting Group.

Prior to joining Huron, Carolyn practiced law at one of Houston’s largest firms. In the last decade, her work focused on electronically stored information. She has extensive experience in developing processes and strategies in the electronic discovery arena, including establishing procedures for gathering electronic data, searching and culling the data, structuring online databases, and managing the review and production of electronically stored information.

David Hricik

David Hricik graduated with honors from Northwestern University School of Law, and then practiced complex commercial litigation and appeals for fourteen years, first with an associate at Baker Botts and eventually as a partner in his own small patent litigation boutique. He was selected as Chair of the Ethics and Professionalism Committee of the Intellectual Property Section of the ABA, and also as chair of the Professionalism & Ethics Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He has written extensively on the issues at the intersection of ethics and technology, and also ethics and intellectual property, and runs legalethics.com and blogs with several other professors on legalethicsforum.com.

Andrew Perlman

Andrew Perlman 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, including articles on the inadvertent disclosure of privileged information, the constitutionality of bar admission rules, and the implications of social psychology for professional responsibility. His current research focuses on the implications of social psychology for legal ethics.

In 2008, Professor Perlman was added as a co-author to the widely used book, Regulations of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards (with Stephen Gillers and Roy Simon). He is also a co-author of a forthcoming civil procedure case book and a co-contributor to a legal ethics blog, www.legalethicsforum.com, which was recently named by the American Bar Association Journal as one of the top 100 law-related blogs in the country.

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 also 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 a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.