Celebrating the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award - LER Bonus Content No. 19 (05.29.25)
Myles Lynk (Arizona State) receives the prestigious ABA Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award for his years of distinguished service
Welcome
Welcome to your nineteenth installment of bonus content from the Legal Ethics Roundup. In addition to the free weekly roundup every Monday morning, I sometimes post bonus content for news that can’t wait or in celebration of honors like the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award. (This is the second bonus content post celebrating the award. Check out Bonus Content No. 13 for coverage of last year’s recipient and a history of the award.)
Greetings from Washington DC. I’m here to speak at the American Bar Association 50th National Conference on Professional Responsibility on Friday. I’ll have more to say about that in next Monday’s Roundup. But I’m sharing this bonus content post to celebrate the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award, which was given this evening to Myles Lynk (Arizona State) as part of the conference events.
Every year since 1994, the ABA bestows the prestigious award. As the ABA website explains: “The Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award is named in honor of Michael Franck, late director of the State Bar of Michigan and long-time champion of improvements in lawyer regulation in the public interest. From the time of his first major undertaking in the name of legal professionalism—serving as reporter to the ABA Clark Commission investigating the state of lawyer discipline in America—to his final years speaking on the floor of the ABA House of Delegates to promote improvements in the Model Code of Judicial Conduct and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Michael Franck’s work stood as a benchmark for turning intellectual honesty, compassion, and uncompromising ethics to every aspect of the practice of law. In an era when lawyers’ dedication to the public good is often questioned, the Michael Franck award brings deserved attention to individuals whose career commitments in areas such as legal ethics, disciplinary enforcement and lawyer professionalism demonstrate the best accomplishments of lawyers.”
Here’s what the ABA said about Lynk’s selection as this year’s recipient:
Myles V. Lynk is the recipient of the 2025 Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award. Professor Lynk is an Emeritus Professor of Law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, where he specializes in professional responsibility, having also taught civil procedure and business organizations. In 2024, he also was appointed Dean of ASU’s Emeritus College.
Professor Lynk is nationally recognized as a leader in legal ethics and professional responsibility through his work as a lawyer, law professor, disciplinary counsel, and tireless contributor to the ABA. His leadership within the ABA, his academic contributions as a legal scholar and mentor to law students and young lawyers, and his dedication to improving the legal profession have left an indelible mark on the legal community.
Throughout his long and distinguished career Professor Lynk has committed himself to counseling, teaching, and enforcing the Rules of Professional Conduct and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers. Immediately after law school Professor Lynk clerked for Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He later served as a Special Assistant to U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph A. Califano, Jr., as an Assistant Director on President Carter’s White House Domestic Policy Staff, and as an Assistant Special Counsel for the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. While a law firm partner in private practice in Washington, DC, prior to his transition to academia, he served on the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee, chaired the D.C. Bar Clients’ Security Trust Fund, and served on the D.C. Bar’s Board of Governors, all before serving as the D.C. Bar’s President from 1996-1997.
In 2000, Professor Lynk made his transition to academia, establishing himself as an influential scholar in legal ethics and a devoted mentor for countless law students and others in his field. … In Arizona, in addition to his academic work at ASU, Professor Lynk co-chaired the State Bar of Arizona’s Task Force on Multijurisdictional Practice, lectured on ethics and leadership to the State Bar’s Bar Leadership Institute, and in 2024 was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court to that Court’s Task Force on Alternative Business Structures.
After being awarded emeritus status at ASU in 2019, Professor Lynk returned to the District of Columbia to serve through 2022 as the Senior Assistant Disciplinary Counsel in charge of appellate litigation in the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, where he represented the Office in numerous cases before the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility and the D.C. Court of Appeals. Even then, Professor Lynk found the time to nurture his passion as a legal educator, teaching courses in professional responsibility at Georgetown University Law Center and Howard University School of Law, and lecturing pro bono on legal ethics and professional responsibility to a wide range of audiences.
Professor Lynk resumed full-time teaching in 2023 with visiting professorships at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law and the Michigan State University College of Law, before returning to the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in 2024. … In all, through his work in private practice, academia, government service, and service to the ABA, Professor Lynk has committed his talents to serving the profession and others, and has gained a reputation as a member of the legal profession who takes seriously his duties “as a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a public citizen having a special responsibility for the administration of justice.”
Read the full announcement here.
For more about the history of this award, including a photo of Michael Franck receiving the inaugural honor more than 30 years ago, revisit LER Bonus Post 13.
Last, but certainly not least, here is a list of past winners of the award. They are an impressive group. The ABA has compiled biographies for each if you want to learn more about their accomplishments.
2024 Award Recipient - Susan Fortney
2023 Award Recipient - Jayne R. Reardon
2022 Award Recipient - Lucian T. Pera
2021 Award Recipient - Nancy J. Moore
2020 Award Recipient - Robert Mundheim
2019 Award Recipient - Peter Jarvis
2018 Award Recipient - Bruce Green
2017 Award Recipient - Robert A. "Bob" Creamer
2016 Award Recipient - Wallace E. “Gene” Shipp, Jr.
2015 Award Recipient - Steven C. Krane
2014 Award Recipient - Jeanne P. Gray
2013 Award Recipient - John S. Gleason
2012 Award Recipient - Seth Rosner
2011 Award Recipient - Stephen Gillers
2010 Award Recipient - Marvin L. Karp
2009 Award Recipient - Mary C. Daly
2008 Award Recipient - Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr.
2007 Award Recipient - Lawrence J. Fox
2006 Award Recipient - Deborah L. Rhode
2005 Award Recipient - E. Norman Veasey
2003 Award Recipient - Charles W. Kettlewell
2002 Award Recipient - M. Peter Moser
2001 Award Recipient - John T. Berry
2001 Award Recipient - Raymond R. Trombadore
2000 Award Recipient - Andrew L. Kaufman
1999 Award Recipient - Robert E. O'Malley
1998 Award Recipient - Monroe H. Freedman
1997 Award Recipient - Lewis H. Van Dusen, Jr.
1996 Award Recipient - Mark I. Harrison
1995 Award Recipient - Fr. Robert Drinan
1994 Award Recipient - Michael Franck
I'll be back Monday with another Legal Ethics Roundup. Until then, thank you for reading and reflecting upon the memory of Michael Franck and his incredible legacy that endures through this award. And congratulations to Professor Lynk!