WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 15, 2011 — Memphis lawyer Lucian T. Pera took office as the treasurer of the American Bar Association at the conclusion of the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto. Pera, a partner at Adams and Reese LLP, will serve a three-year term through the association’s Annual Meeting in August 2014. His tenure also includes service on the ABA Board of Governors and Executive Committee.

Pera’s civil and commercial litigation practice focuses on a wide variety of issues, including legal ethics work, media law, personal injury and intellectual property law. He has represented many media outlets in matters ranging from claims and lawsuits for defamation or invasion of privacy to access to courtrooms, public records and meetings of government bodies. He has also litigated several key media access cases, including the Tennessee Supreme Court case Memphis Publishing Co. v. Cherokee Children & Family Services, Inc., which extended access under the Tennessee Public Records Act to records of private companies that are the “functional equivalent” of government.

Pera regularly provides expert witness testimony in matters concerning legal ethics, professional responsibility and the standard of care for lawyers and law firms. He also advises businesses seeking to do business with lawyers about how they can do so legally and ethically.

Pera was actively involved in the most recent revision of the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which are now the model for the lawyer ethics rules in virtually every American jurisdiction. He was a member of the Board of Governors from 1994-1997 and chaired the Board’s Finance Committee in 1996-1997. A member of the House of Delegates since 1991, where he has represented the Tennessee Bar Association, Pera served on the House Committee on Technology and Communications. He is a past chair of the Standing Committee on Technology and Information Systems and served on the Ethics 2000 Commission. He was also a special advisor to the Standing Committee on Strategic Communications.

His extensive bar association contributions in the area of legal ethics and professional responsibility have led to Pera’s being recognized as a leader in this emerging field. He represents and advises attorneys, law firms, their clients and businesses that deal with lawyers about all aspects of the law.

Pera led the Tennessee Bar Association ethics committee from 1995-2009, spearheading the TBA’s petitions to the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking ethics rules revisions. These include the TBA’s successful petition that let to Tennessee adopting its own version of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct to replace Tennessee’s prior ethics rules.

Pera has also served as president of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and was APRL’s liaison to the Coordinating Council for the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. He has also served as a member and chair of editorial board for the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct, the nation’s leading publication in the field of legal ethics. Pera is also actively involved in the Media Law Resource Center, a national organization of media organizations and their lawyers.

Pera is a member of the American Law Institute, a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management.  He is recognized as a leading practitioner in commercial litigation by Chambers USA, and by The Best Lawyers in America in several fields, including First Amendment Law and Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law.  Memphis Business Quarterly Magazine has also listed him as a power player in business litigation (2010-2011). Pera has also received the Tennessee Bar Association’s President’s Award (2000 and 2003) and the Memphis Bar Association’s Sam A. Myar Jr. Memorial Award (1997).  He is widely published in the areas of legal ethics and media law, and speaks frequently to audiences of lawyers across the country.

A Memphis native, Pera has practiced law there since 1986. He joined Adams and Reese to assist the firm’s expansion to Memphis in 2006. Pera received his B.A. from Princeton University and J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law.

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the world’s largest voluntary professional membership organization. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

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