Ethics & Professionalism Committee Chair
LUCIAN T. PERA
Lucian T. Pera is a partner with Adams and Reese LLP and a member of its Litigation Practice Group, practicing primarily in the civil trial area, including a wide variety of commercial, media, intellectual property and personal injury litigation. He is a member of the Ethics Practice Team and the Commercial Disputes Practice Team.
Mr. Pera has represented a number of major media outlets in significant litigation concerning public and media access to public records, open meetings, and court proceedings. These cases include a landmark Tennessee Supreme Court decision granting public and media access to the records of a troubled nonprofit government contractor administering tens of millions of dollars in public money in assistance to low-income mothers. He is an active member of the Media Law Resource Center’s Defense Counsel Section, serving as chair of its ethics committee and as co-author of chapters in two of its national surveys of law relating to the media. He speaks and writes annually on media law issues, both in Tennessee and nationally.
Mr. Pera also counsels and represents lawyers, large and small law firms, law departments, and other clients in the area of lawyer ethics, professional responsibility, malpractice and loss prevention; and he has developed a nationwide practice and reputation in this field. He is a frequent speaker and author on such matters in numerous venues across the country. He served for five years as a member of the American Bar Association’s Special Commission on the Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which proposed significant changes that were approved by the ABA in 2002, and which have now been considered by almost all American jurisdictions for adoption. He currently chairs the ABA Section of Business Law’s Committee on Professional Conduct and has chaired the Editorial Board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Responsibility. Additionally, he has served as chair of the Tennessee Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility since 2000.
Aside from the leadership roles he has held in various organizations in the areas of media law and lawyer ethics, Mr. Pera has also served these organizations in other capacities. Since 1990, with only a three-year break, he has served as a member of the ABA House of Delegates, as well as having served as one of two Young Lawyer Members-at-Large of the ABA Board of Governors from 1994-1997. During his final year on the Board, he became the only young lawyer to ever chair its Finance Committee and served on the ABA Executive Committee. He has also served as the Tennessee Bar Association as its Secretary, a member of its Board of Governors, and as President of its Young Lawyers Division.
A Memphis native, Mr. Pera graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1982, and obtained his Juris Doctorate from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1985. He served as a law clerk to Judge Harry W. Wellford of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
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