Legal Advisory Board

The Legal Advisory Board's mission is to ensure that LexisNexis® and Martindale-Hubbell® are responsive to the constantly changing needs of the legal profession. In response to these needs, the Board entertains new strategies and concepts developed by the company, and provides impartial and candid points of view. The following lawyers selected from the private, corporate, academic and international sectors of the profession comprise the current Board.

Members of the Legal Advisory Board:

Dennis W. Archer

Dennis W. Archer of Dickinson Wright PLLC; Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Archer is the former Mayor of the City of Detroit, (1994-2001) and a former Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court (1986-1990). He is the past President of the Wolverine Bar Association, the National Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan. Mr. Archer is the past President of the National League of Cities, past President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and a past member of the Board of Trustees of the United States Conference of Mayors and Board of Directors of the National Conference of Black Mayors. He currently serves on the American Bar Association's Board of Governors. He was President of the American Bar Association-August 2002 to August 2003, the first person of color to be so honored. He also serves as Chairman of Dickinson Wright PLLC.

Martha W. Barnett

Martha W. Barnett of Holland & Knight, LLP, Tallahassee, Florida. Ms. Barnett is a former Chair of the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, the first woman lawyer to be so honored, and has served on the ABA's Board of Governors. She was elected President of the American Bar Association, serving as such from July 2000 to August 2001. Ms. Barnett now serves as Chair of Holland & Knight.

Robert H. Bernstein

Robert H. Bernstein joined Reed Smith in January 2005. Mr. Bernstein heads the Firm's Labor & Employment Global Marketing Team, strengthening the Firm's offering to its national and international corporate clients. During the past 23 years, Mr. Bernstein has developed an extensive labor and employment practice, exclusively representing multinational and domestic corporations nationwide, with an emphasis in employment litigation. Mr. Bernstein lectures and writes extensively throughout the United States and overseas concerning a wide array of employment law issues. In 1982, Mr. Bernstein earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center; in 1979, he received his B.S.F.S., with distinction, from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Mr. Bernstein is admitted to the New Jersey Bar, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. He is a member of the Labor Law Section and Litigation Section of the American Bar Association.

Benjamin R. Civiletti

Benjamin R. Civiletti is a partner of Venable, LLP in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Civiletti is a former Attorney General of the United States under President Carter, 1979-1981. He is the former Chairman of the ABA Litigation Section and has been a member of the ABA House of Delegates since 1991. He also serves as the ABA Representative to the United Nations. He is the former Chairman of Venable. Mr. Civiletti is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Law Institute.

Thomas R. Curtin

Thomas R. Curtin of Graham, Curtin & Sheridan, A Professional Association, Morristown, New Jersey. Mr. Curtin is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He is a past President of the Morris County Bar Association (1978-1979), the New Jersey State Bar Foundation (1986-1988), the New Jersey State Bar Association (1993-1994), and the Notre Dame Law Association (2000-2001). He is a former Chairman of the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law (1996-1998). He is a member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates, serving as the New Jersey State Delegate, and the Sports Lawyers Association. He is currently a member of the Notre Dame Law School Advisory Council and has been on the Board of Directors for the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame since 2002.

Thomas G. Heintzman

Thomas G. Heintzman, O.C., Q.C., is a trial and appellate counsel practicing with the law firm of McCarthy Tétrault, Toronto, Ontario. He is a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada and a past President of the Canadian Bar Association. Mr. Heintzman is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Chair of its Canadian Competitions Committee.

Douglas B. Henderson

Douglas B. Henderson is the Founding and Senior Partner of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Washington, D.C. Mr. Henderson is a Member of the Advisory Council of the United States Court of Federal Claims, and a Member of the Board of the Federal Circuit Bar Association. He was formerly Chairman of the Patent Division and Member of Council of the Section of Intellectual Property Law of the American Bar Association. He was the Founder of the Federal Circuit Bar Association, a co-founder of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Bar Association, and a co-founder of the ITC Trial Lawyers Association.

Patrick E. Hobbs

Patrick E. Hobbs, Dean of Seton Hall University School of Law, first joined the faculty of Seton Hall in 1990. He teaches in the area of taxation and has taught Federal Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation and Business Planning, and Law and Literature. In 1995, he became the Associate Dean for Finance. In 1999, he became the Law School's seventh Dean. Dean Hobbs graduated magna cum laude from Seton Hall University with a B.S. in Accounting. He received his J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned his LL.M. from New York University. Dean Hobbs was appointed a Commissioner on the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation by former Governor James McGreevy. He has chaired the American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Law School Development Committee since 2002, and was also appointed to serve on the American Bar Association Standards Review Committee. He also serves as a member of the boards of the Newark Alliance, LexisNexis, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, the New Jersey Commission of Professionalism, and the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. In 2004, he served as Chair of the Newark, New Jersey Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on the Downtown Core Redevelopment.

Thomas J. Klitgaard

Thomas J. Klitgaard, of Dillingham & Murphy, in San Francisco is the former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Tandem Computers Incorporated and Sega of America, Inc., a Japanese owned company. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Law and Technology, Plano, Texas, and is an adjunct professor of law on Asian Legal Systems at the University of San Francisco School of Law. He is a director of the San Francisco-Shanghai Friendship City Committee and oversees a business management program with the Shanghai Municipal Government for government employees. He is a member of the panels of domestic and international arbitrators and mediators of the American Arbitration Association and of the panel of arbitrators of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. He is the former chair of the California State Bar Committee on the Maintenance of Professional Competence. He began his law career as the law clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Mr. Klitgaard practices in the areas of intellectual property, litigation, and international trade.

J. Allen Maines

J. Allen Maines of Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP concentrates on domestic and international corporate counseling, crossborder corporate governance issues and internal investigations, and securities and intellectual property litigation. He has served as Chairman of his firm's Securities Litgation Practice and Litigation Department, and has published and spoken extensively on securities, corporate governance and intellectual property issues. Mr. Maines is a faculty member for both the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and the National Association of Corporate Directors. He began his law career as the law clerk for James Wm. Moore, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University, author of Moore's Federal Practice and editor-in-chief of Collier on Bankruptcy. He received his J.D. degree, with honors, in 1976 from the University of Florida, where he was executive editor of the Florida Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude from Taylor University in 1973. Mr. Maines serves on the Board of Directors for the March of Dimes, Earth Share, The Animal Health Trust, the Socionomics Foundation, several for profit entities, and a state university's Center for Corporate Governance.

Karen J. Mathis

Karen J. Mathis, a partner in the Denver office of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP, is the immediate past president of the American Bar Association. An active member of the ABA for almost 30 years, she is the third woman to serve as an ABA president, and the first president from Colorado. She has served as a member of the House of Delegates since 1982. Mathis is also a member of the ABA Board of Governors, and has served on its Executive Committee, Operations Committee and Program and Planning Committee. Mathis has also been active in the Denver Bar Association and Colorado Bar Association for many years. A member of the Colorado and International Women's Forums, she has spoken on five continents about the future of the law and women’s place in the profession. She is a business, commercial and estate planning lawyer with more than 30 years’ experience.

Jeralyn E. Merritt

Jeralyn E. Merritt is a criminal defense lawyer in private practice in Colorado. Her practice is limited to criminal defense and related forfeitures, with an emphasis on complex federal drug and white collar crimes. Ms. Merritt served as Treasurer and Secretary and on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, from 1996 through 2004. She was a member of the governing council of the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section from 2000 through 2004. She is an elected fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers and a past member of its Board of Governors. Ms. Merritt has testified before both Congress and the United States Sentencing Commission on drug sentencing laws. She is the co-author of a text on the Patriot Act, published by Lexis Publishing. She lectures nationally on a variety of criminal defense topics, and since 1996, has provided insightful legal analysis for MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, Court TV and other television and radio networks. From 2000 to 2003, she was a Lecturer-In-Law at Denver University's College of Law teaching "Wrongful Convictions" and "Criminal Defense." In 1996 and 1997, she served as one of the principal trial lawyers for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City Bombing Case. She is the founder and creator of two award winning websites, CrimeLynx.com, and TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime (TalkLeft.com), a weblog for legal professionals, journalists and the public.

Harriet Miers

Harriet Miers is a former White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. She also served as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff, and prior to that she was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. Before joining the President's staff, she was Co-Managing Partner at Locke Liddell & Sapp, LLP. She is past chair of the Texas Lottery Commission. In 1992, Ms. Miers became the first woman president of the Texas State Bar, and in 1985 she became the first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association.

William G. Paul

William G. Paul of Crowe & Dunlevy, A Professional Corporation, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Paul is the former Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Phillips Petroleum Company, Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In 1999, he was elected President of the American Bar Association, to serve as such from August 1999 to July 2000. He has served as President for both the Oklahoma State Bar Association and National Conference of Bar Presidents. Mr. Paul has been a Member of the American Bar Association, House of Delegates since 1975 and is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Fernando Pombo

Fernando Pombo, Founder and Senior Partner of Gomez-Acebo & Pombo, Madrid, Spain, has contributed to and authored several publications in the field of international business law. Currently, he is Vice-President of the International Bar Association. Mr. Pombo has been a visiting professor at the Institute on International Legal Studies in Salzburg, Austria since 1985. He is also a former President of LES International and a member of the Spanish Arbitration Court. He is fluent in Spanish, English, French and German.

Wm. Reece Smith, Jr.

Wm. Reece Smith, Jr. of Tampa, Florida, is the senior member of Carlton, Fields, P.A. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, England, he was later President of The Florida Bar (1972-73), the American Bar Association (1980-81), and the International Bar Association (1988-90). He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and serves on the Council of the American Law Institute. He received the American Bar Association's Gold Medal for "exceptionally distinguished service to the cause of American Jurisprudence."

Tomasz Wardynski

Tomasz Wardynski, CBE, is a founding partner of Wardynski & Partners of Poland. He is a specialist in international project financing, privatization and restructuring of state-owned enterprises. He is a member of the Polish Bar Association and a former chairman of its Foreign Committee (1988-92). He was a member of the Advisory Council on Privatisation to the Prime Minister of Poland and is a former member of the Supervisory Board of the Polish Development Bank. Since 1986 he has been an honorary legal adviser to her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador in Poland. He is a member of the Polish Business Council, a member of the Polish-British Legal Association, a member of the International Bar Association, a member of the European Circuit of England and Wales, a member of the Garrick Club.

Walter H. White, Jr.

Walter White is a Partner in Grundberg Mocatta Rakison LLP (GMR). He was the Founding Partner of White and Jones LLP London, England, which merged with GMR in July 2006. Mr. White previously served as a Partner of Steptoe & Johnson L.L.P. in Washington, D.C. and as the Managing Director of its Moscow office. Mr. White is a former Commissioner of Securities for the State of Wisconsin 1988-1991. He has served as a member of the ABA House of Delegates, as the Chair of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and as chair of the Young Lawyers Division. Mr. White has also been a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin Board of Governors, on the Board of the Milwaukee Foundation and as a Board member of the Central-Asian-American Enterprise Fund by appointment of former President Clinton. He also currently serves as a Trustee of Hampshire College and a Director of Church Mutual Insurance Company.