sunEthics

TIMOTHY P. CHINARIS (email tchinaris@faulkner.edu)

    Timothy P. Chinaris is Associate Dean for Information Resources and Professor of Law at Faulkner University's Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama.  (The law school is named for Thomas Goode Jones, an early member of the Alabama State Bar Association, who wrote the Code of Ethics of the Association in 1887.  This 1887 code of legal ethics was adopted by 11 states and became the foundation of the first Canons of Ethics adopted by the American Bar Association in 1908.)  Professor Chinaris teaches courses in legal ethics and other subjects, as well as directing law library operations.  Prior to joining the faculty at Faulkner, he served as Assistant Dean of Information Resources at Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, and as Associate Dean for Information Resources and Technology at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, Florida.  He is admitted to practice law in Florida and Texas.

    Professor Chinaris was Ethics Director of the Florida Bar from 1989-1997.  His responsibilities included managing the Bar's popular "ethics hotline" service, which annually answers more than 20,000 phone calls per year from Florida lawyers.  Professor Chinaris has a bachelor's degree cum laude in Business Administration from Florida State University, received his J.D. With Honors from the University of Texas School of Law, and earned his master's degree in Library and Information Studies from Florida State University.  After graduating from law school he clerked for the Texas Court of Appeals.  Prior to accepting a position with the Florida Bar, he was an associate in Dallas with what is now the law firm of Godwin Pappas Ronquillo LLC.

    Professor Chinaris writes on legal ethics for various publications and speaks to local, state, and national organizations on a wide range of professional responsibility issues.  He serves on the Alabama State Bar Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee.  He is a member and past chair of the Professional Ethics Committee of the Florida Bar, Immediate Past President of the Florida Bar Out-of-State Practitioners Division, a member of the Florida Bar Law Office Management Assistance (LOMAS) Advisory Board, a past member of the Florida Bar and Virginia State Bar unauthorized practice of law committees, and is active in other legal and librarianship organizations.  Professor Chinaris consults with and represents lawyers and others on a variety of professional responsibility matters.  He has served as an expert witness on legal ethics matters, including in the first case decided under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  Additionally, he consults with academic institutions on law library issues.

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