Corporate Counsel
The Metropolitan
®
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Volume 13, No. 11
© 2005 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
November 2005
The Lawyer As Public Citizen:
The American Bar Association Leads
The Profession Into The Future
The Editor interviews Michael S. Greco, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP, President of the American Bar
Association.
Editor: Mr. Greco, would you tell our readers something
about your background and professional experience?
Greco: I was born in Italy in 1942, and came to America at the
age of seven. My mother was American, my dad Italian. After
the war my family immigrated to the United States and we settled in Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, where my mother
had been born. I did my undergraduate work at Princeton University and legal studies at Boston College Law School, where I
served as editor-in-chief of the law review and class president.
Following a clerkship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City, I joined the Boston law firm of
Hill & Barlow. By prior agreement, the firm permitted me a 9month leave to become a Fellow at the University of Florence
Law Faculty. I returned to Hill & Barlow after the Fellowship
and spent 31 years there until the firm closed its doors in 2002.
I then had the good fortune to join the firm of Kirkpatrick &
Lockhart Nicholson Graham. The two firms have a great deal in
common: outstanding lawyers, dedication to providing excellent
service to clients, a view of lawyers as problem solvers, and a
strong commitment to public service and the well-being of the
greater community. These are important attributes for me,
because they constitute the background that I bring to my ABA
presidency and the initiatives that I am implementing during the
coming year.
Editor: Will you share with us the factors that went into
your choice of the law as a career?
Greco: I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer at a very young
age, in junior high school. The village of Hinsdale was a very
close-knit, caring community, and it occurred to me that one of
the principal reasons that it was so appealing had to do with the
many lawyers who devoted so much time to the needs of the
town and its inhabitants. Outstanding lawyers, who practiced in
Chicago law firms or in Hinsdale by day, in the evenings and on
weekends also served on the School Board, on the Planning
Board, on various other important town committees and com-
Michael S. Greco
missions, and in a variety of civic and community roles. I realized that these townspeople were problem solvers who functioned at the very heart of society, who cared for their community
and who worked to improve society. In time, I came to understand that the most important place that members of our profession occupy in society is that of public citizen, dedicated to the
common good, and that this has been a vitally important societal
role of lawyers for centuries.
Editor: Would you tell us about your practice and how it has
evolved over the course of your career?
Greco: I am a trial lawyer by background. Most of my work has
involved commercial litigation, and over time that has become
both more complex and more sophisticated. More recently I have
also been engaged in arbitration and mediation, and in recent
Volume 13, No. 11
© 2005 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
years my work as an arbitrator in complex
business and other disputes has become
an increasingly important part of my practice.
Editor: You have also had a parallel
career with the American Bar Association. Would you tell us how you got
started and then how your ABA career
evolved?
Greco: I became active in the bar shortly
after coming back to Boston from my
Second Circuit clerkship in New York.
Within a year I was active in both the
Boston Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association, and shortly
thereafter I became a member of the
American Bar Association. In time I
became increasingly active with the
Massachusetts Bar, serving on the governing board by the late 1970s and then, in
1985-86, serving as president. The MBA
presidency was a wonderful experience.
One of the highlights of that year was my
appointing, with the Governor, a commission that examined the unmet legal needs
of children, and that made a dozen recommendations, several of which were
enacted into law protecting the rights of
children. During my year in office I
became a Massachusetts delegate to the
American Bar Association House of Delegates, and I have served there ever since,
in various capacities.
Over the years I was asked to chair a
number of committees by ABA presidents, including the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, which
evaluates the President’s federal court
nominees, including United States
Supreme Court nominees.
When I completed that assignment, I
became chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, an
entity that I and many others consider to
be the conscience of the ABA. Eventually,
I was asked to consider becoming President of the ABA.
Editor: As you enter the office of President of the ABA, what are the principal
items on your agenda? What do you
wish to accomplish during your term of
office?
Greco: During my term I want to implement certain initiatives that I believe will
benefit society in general, that will help
make the practice of law more fulfilling
for lawyers, and that will enable lawyers
to serve their clients, the public, and society more effectively.
The President of the ABA has an
opportunity to take a long, hard look at
the profession and its contributions to
society. There are three primary initiatives
that I am implementing. The first derives
from what I believe to be the indispensable role that lawyers play in the community. I have appointed a commission to
help reinvigorate the public service mission of the legal profession. It is called the
ABA Commission on the Renaissance of
Idealism in the Legal Profession. U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Theodore C. Sorensen, Special
Counsel to President John F. Kennedy, are
serving as the honorary co-chairs. Mark
D. Agrast, of Washington, DC, is chairing
the commission. Mr. Sorensen was present when the Peace Corps was established under a President who inspired
young people to serve their nation and the
world. He sees a need, as do I, for the profession to embrace the spirit that created
the Peace Corps. The Commission will
provide important guidance on ways that
the legal profession can make more time
available for lawyers to perform pro bono
and pubic service work.
My second initiative came to mind
during the national debate surrounding
the Terri Schiavo case. I was astonished at
the irresponsible criticism directed by
some of our governmental leaders and
others at the judges who ruled on that
case. Attacks on judges for doing their job
in a fair and impartial way pose a serious
threat to our form of government. The
loss of an independent judiciary and loss
of public respect for our judiciary would
be a serious blow to our democracy. An
independent judiciary is what protects the
rights and freedoms of the individual and
the rule of law. Anyone who understands
the concept of separation of powers that
the Founders embedded in the U.S. Constitution understands that this is what has
allowed our country to flourish for more
than two centuries.
This past August the American Bar
Association commissioned a Harris Interactive survey on the public’s understanding of the separation of powers and the
role of the judiciary in our society. The
results were very disturbing. There exists
a fundamental lack of knowledge about
how our government works. If the people
do not understand their rights, it is easy
for those rights to be subverted, even
taken away altogether. It is also easy to
foment attacks on the judiciary when people don’t know what the judge’s role is.
An informed public, one that understands
the role of the judiciary in protecting our
rights and the rule of law, is the best safeguard against such attacks.
To this end, I appointed the ABA Commission on Civic Education and the Sepa-
November 2005
ration of Powers. The honorary co-chairs
of the commission are retiring Supreme
Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and
former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley. The
working chair is Robert Rawson, the partner-in-charge of Jones Day’s Cleveland
office and a lawyer of great distinction.
Bob has just stepped down after many
years as Chairman of the Princeton University Board of Trustees and possesses
distinguished credentials to lead what is
essentially an educational initiative. The
Commission includes several former
members of the U.S. Senate and House of
Representatives, retired judges, former
members of the Executive Branch, and the
current heads of the National Education
Association, the American Federation of
Teachers and the National Council for the
Social Studies. The Commission will
examine the teaching of civics throughout
the country and make recommendations
for improvements where needed.
The third initiative has to do with
improving access to the civil justice system for lower-income Americans. I have
appointed the ABA Task Force on Access
to Justice to address the issue. In 1987,
after I finished my term as president of the
Massachusetts Bar, I chaired a study on
the legal needs of the poor in Massachusetts. We found that 70-80% of the legal
needs of the poor go unaddressed year
after year. Those findings, similar ones
from other states, and studies undertaken
in the early 1990’s by the ABA, helped in
the effort to persuade Congress to increase
funding for the Legal Services Corporation, and, at least for a few years, additional funds were forthcoming.
Notwithstanding our profession’s strong
commitment to pro bono services, however, the United States today ranks near
the bottom among developed countries in
funding for legal services for the poor. The
ABA Task Force on Access to Justice is
headed by Associate Justice Howard H.
Dana, Jr., of the Maine Supreme Judicial
Court, who twice served (by appointment
of two U.S. Presidents) on the governing
board of the Legal Services Corporation.
The Task Force has two goals: to promote
the establishment of commissions on
access to justice in all 50 states; and to
make recommendations to the ABA on an
idea whose time has come: a defined legal
right to counsel for indigents in civil cases
dealing with serious family, housing and
health issues, similar to the constitutional
right that the U.S. Supreme Court set forth
in the 1962 case Gideon v. Wainwright for
indigents facing imprisonment on the
criminal side.
Those are my three primary initiatives.
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© 2005 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
I will also carry forward the work of ABA
President Robert Grey’s Task Force on the
Attorney-Client Privilege, which is continuing its work this year.
Editor: One of the themes of our publication concerns the progress of the rule
of law, particularly in places that have
not known it in the past. Would you tell
us about the role that the ABA plays in
this area?
Greco: The ABA has four rule of law initiatives. The first, the Central European
and Eurasian Law Initiative, or CEELI,
was set up after the fall of the Soviet
Union and consists of teams of judges,
lawyers and law students who help, for
example, the Balkan countries develop
legal systems that are free of corruption.
Over the past seven years the ABA has
established similar rule of law projects in
Asia, Latin America and Africa. The ultimate goal for all of these initiatives is to
enable countries with weak or even nonfunctioning economies to begin to attract
foreign investment through the implementation of the rule of law and stable
judicial systems. Even the most attractive
investment opportunity is going to be
ignored by investors if a fair and impartial
judicial system is lacking and there is no
guarantee that the investment is going to
be protected from predatory interests.
This past February I visited the Republic of Georgia to meet, among others, the
newly installed Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. He is a young man –
32 years of age – charged with addressing
the judicial corruption that is a holdover
from Soviet times. At the time we met he
had been in office for three days. He told
me that he had deferred a number of meetings with heads of state so that his first
official meeting would be with the incoming ABA President, in gratitude for all that
the ABA, and American lawyers and
judges, have done in his country to help
build a free and stable legal system. His
compliment, which I accepted on behalf
of all American lawyers and judges, and
similar ones in other developing countries
that I have visited, indicate that the ABA’s
rule of law efforts are making an important difference in these countries.
Let me add that the civic education
survey I mentioned a moment ago suggests, regrettably, that the rule of law is
being taken for granted in our own coun-
November 2005
try. The ABA Commission on Civic Education and the Separation of Powers is
working to ensure that our country continues to be governed by that principle.
Editor: Is it possible to win the war on
terrorism without subverting the rule of
law?
Greco: It must be possible for us to win
the war on terrorism without subverting
the rule of law. The ABA is on record in its
support of the Administration’s efforts to
secure our nation, and also on record about
the need to secure our civil liberties and
freedoms. The ABA believes that to keep
someone in prison for years on end, without being charged, without access to counsel and without independent judicial
review of the incarceration, violates the
fundamental due process and fairness
tenets of our democracy. The U.S.
Supreme Court agreed with this position
in its rulings in June 2004. If we do not
fiercely safeguard the principles that have
guided us for so many years, then, in violating the rights to which these detainees
are entitled, we run the risk of surrendering those rights for all of us. The rule of
law protects everyone, or no one.