ABA Administrative Law Panel

ABA Administrative Law Panel

“Ethics for Environmental Practitioners”

Saturday, August 7, 2004

PANEL BIOS

Phyllis E. Bernard

Phyllis Bernard is the Robert S. Kerr, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at Oklahoma City University School of Law, where she teaches state and federal administrative law, alternative dispute resolution, and legal ethics. She is the founding director of the OCUCenter on Alternative Dispute Resolution, which has the mission of expanding the use of mediation, arbitration, negotiated settlement and other non-litigious forms of dispute resolution through class instruction, scholarly research, and community outreach. Prof. Bernard heads the Early Settlement Central Mediation program, the court-annexed ADR program for Oklahoma, Canadian, and Cleveland counties, operating under contract with the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Prof. Bernard is a frequent lecturer and presenter at academic and professional conferences throughout the nation. Prof. Bernard’s research and teaching interests in mediation derive from practical experience as a litigator, lobbyist and adjudicator in Washington, D.C. She has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States in developing an ADR process to replace most Medicare adjudications for institutional providers under the $90 billion Part A program. As a state Commissioner serving on the Oklahoma Merit Protection Commission, Prof. Bernard assisted in developing the rules and procedures replacing most of the state merit system appeals process with ADR, and in developing the first ethics rules for Merit Protection commissioners. She serves on the Board of Directors for Southwest Power Pool, lnc., a not-for-profit entity with responsibility for maintaining reliable electricity on non-discriminatory terms for public and private power companies in an eight-state region of the United States.

On the international level Prof. Bernard has served as a consultant to the U.N. World Health Organization, advising the Lao People’s Democratic Republic on privatization of their health care system and development of a quality of care dispute resolution system. With the International Federation of Women Lawyers in the Niger Delta Prof. Bernard has designed an appropriate tribal peacemaking program, using the Early Settlement model. This model has become a successful prototype for bridging traditional and civil justice systems at the village level.

Prof. Bernard holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a master’s in history from Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and a bachelor’s in history (cum laude) from BrynMawrCollege. She is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, the federal courts for the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In the American Bar Association, Prof. Bernard has served on the governing councils of two sections: the Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice and the Dispute Resolution Section. She is chair-elect of the Dispute Resolution Section of the Association of American Law Schools; and is co-editor of the book, Dispute Resolution Ethics: A Comprehensive Guide, published by the ABA.

CYNTHIA A. DREW

Cynthia A. Drew is an environmental attorney and Associate Professor at the University of Miami (“UM”), jointly in the School of Law and the Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. Professor Drew currently teaches administrative law and natural resources law in UM’s School of Law. With a geologist, she team-teaches the first multi-disciplinary undergraduate environmental science course for UM’s new ecosystem center.

With Professor Mary Doyle, Professor Drew is currently co-editing a book for Island Press analyzing ongoing ecosystem restoration/conservation/management projects such as the Everglades and Chesapeake Bay; she wrote the chapter discussing the Upper Mississippi River. These comparative case studies will be used in graduate/undergraduate environmental science courses, and by Agency scientists and decision-makers working to restore the ecosystems. Professor Drew’s current work also focuses on issues concerning environmental and natural resources statutory and regulatory regimes in areas of scientific complexity.

Before joining the UM faculty in 2002, Ms. Drew served the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., in its Environmental Defense Section, representing the United States in both trial and appellate courts. Her practice focused on Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act (“CAA”), and Superfund matters: e.g., litigating the Maryland and Virginia Total Maximum Daily Load cases, and defending significant U.S. Environmental Protection Agency CAA tribal jurisdictional rules in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

While a member of Jenner & Block’s Environmental Law Department in Chicago, Ms. Drew represented private clients as both litigation and corporate counsel, from pro bono defense of crimes charged in Cook County, Illinois, to environmental due diligence in major transactions and CAA permitting for midwestern and southeastern paper mills. She also published a chapter analyzing the leading Chicago indoor environmental quality case in Keeping Buildings Healthy: How to Monitor and Prevent Indoor Environmental Problems; her analyses of Agency banking regulators’ changing environmental risk management rules and practices were twice published in TheReview of Banking and Financial Services. After graduating with honors from Northwestern University School of Law, she clerked for the Honorable Douglas W. Hillman, United States District Court, Western District of Michigan.

Ms. Drew’s ten years of environmental experience before law school include work for both federal and state agencies. Serving as intergovernmental representative in St. Lucie County, Florida, for the South Florida Water Management District, she initiated and led year-long political and technical processes resulting in the first wellfield protection ordinance being passed unanimously by all County and City governing boards. She also served as public affairs officer and technical writer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, while earning a Ph.D. and M.A. from VanderbiltUniversity (in Renaissance drama and history). Her B.A. is with honors in English from NewcombCollege, TulaneUniversity.

WILLIAM T. JONES

William T. Jones joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a staff attorney in the Water Branch, Office of Regional Counsel in June 1993. He is currently an Assistant Regional Counsel assigned to the Office of Water Legal Support (OWLS) in Region 4, Atlanta, Georgia. While working at EPA he has worked extensively with enforcing the various provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act. He is the designated office expert on public water system supervision requirements, the use and disposal of sewage sludge, and delegation of authority. His civil trial experience includes a wide variety of environmental, real estate, personal injury, domestic relations, and commercial business litigation. Most recently, William moderated the continuing legal education ethics and professional responsibility program for attorneys at the SamNunnAtlantaFederalCenter.

William earned his Juris Doctorate from Howard University School of Law in 1993 and his Bachelor of Science in 1988 from HowardUniversity. He is admitted to the bar in Georgia, South Carolina, the District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Georgia, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Lucian T. Pera

Lucian T. Pera is a partner in the Memphis, Tennessee, office of Armstrong Allen, PLLC, a 75-lawyer firm with five offices in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi. His practice is composed primarily of civil trial work, including a wide variety of media, health care, personal injury, and general commercial litigation, and he also counsels and represents lawyers, law firms, and others in the area of ethics and professional responsibility. A Memphis native, he is a graduate of Princeton University and Vanderbilt University School of Law, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Tennessee Ethics Handbook (now in its fifth edition) and one of two co-authors of an email newsletter on ethics, Ethics and Lawyering Today, hosted on the web at < He served for five years as a member of the ABA Special Commission on the Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct (also known as “Ethics 2000”), whose proposed changes to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct were largely adopted by the ABA in February 2002. He serves as Chair of the Tennessee Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, whose petition seeking the adoption of new legal ethics rules for Tennessee based on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct was granted in August 2002 by the Tennessee Supreme Court. From 1990 through 1994, and from 2000 to the present, he has represented the TBA in the ABA House of Delegates. From 1994 through 1997, he served as one of two Young Lawyer Members-at-Large of the ABA Board of Governors and, during 1996 through 1997, he is the first and only young lawyer to serve as Chair of the Board's Finance Committee and as a member of the Association's eight-person Executive Committee. He is a member of the American Law Institute.

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