I am the 2008-2010 liaison for the Young Lawyer's Division to the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. I currently practice at a large firm in Chicago dealing with conflicts of interest and ethical conflicts pertaining to new attorney hires and recruits. As you can imagine, professional responsibility plays a huge role in my position.

Upon leaving law school, I had no idea I would wind up at a large firm, and I definitely didn't have professional responsibility on my mind as an area I wanted to practice in. Since taking on this position and being thrown literally head first into the waters, I have come to greatly appreciate the role professional responsibility should play in every lawyer's career. It's not just a required course in law school as I used to think, it's so much more than that!

I strongly feel that the areas of professional responsibility I deal with on a daily basis, such as various ethics principles and conflicts of law, are not only applicable to any field of law, but they are an essential component of being a successful attorney and can only serve as an asset to any attorney no matter what their practice. Most importantly, if you don't want to be sanctioned by your state bar or sued by a client, you should probably hold the rules of professional responsibility near and dear. Hopefully I can help the Center reach out to younger lawyers, who may not have the experience to keep them out of any hot water they could possibly get themselves into and steer them in the right ethical direction in any given situation. For example, are you aware of the ABA's ETHICSearch research service? (1-800-285-2221 or ethicsearch@staff.abanet.org) The lawyers on staff can help you locate resources that relate to your inquiry, free of charge!

I wanted to become more involved in the ABA and as a member of the Young Lawyer's Division I felt that acting as liaison to the Center would be the best way to make use of my knowledge and skills in the world of professional responsibility. And hopefully I can help the Center see the world from a young lawyer's perspective as well.

On a side note, my personal goal is to put a stop to demeaning attorney jokes and the general populace's poor perception of lawyers as "ambulance chasers" or "sharks" (!!). Although yes, some of these jokes are quite funny, it also saddens me that my chosen profession is portrayed in such a negative light at times. With your help, and with a strong ethical foundation embracing the Center for Professional Responsibility and all it has to offer, we can put an end to the needless teasing of attorneys going on across the nation.