Maibeth Porter receives Alabama State Bar’s Susan Bevill Livingston Leadership Award
The Alabama State Bar has named Birmginham attorney Maibeth Porter the recipient of 2017 Susan Bevill Livingston Leadership Award. The award is given annually to a female attorney who demonstrates a continual commitment to those around her as a mentor, a sustained level of leadership throughout her career and a commitment to the community in which she practices. Porter received the award during the State Bar’s annual meeting in Point Clear, Ala. earlier this month, her firm, Maynard Cooper & Gale announced on Monday. “Maibeth J. Porter is a founding member and Shareholder of Maynard Cooper & Gale where she has exemplified to an extraordinary degree all of the qualities that the Susan Bevill Livingston award seeks to highlight,” said the Alabama State Bar. “Maibeth is an accomplished trial lawyer and serves as Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial Institutions, Corporate Governance & Fiduciary Litigation Practice Group. She demonstrates a continual commitment to those around her as a mentor, also serving as Co-Chair of Maynard Cooper’s Women’s Mentoring Program. Her litigation and appellate talents are consistently recognized by her peers and clients.” Her litigation and appellate talents are consistently recognized by her peers and clients and include rankings in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business since 2008, Best Lawyers in America since 2007 which also named her “Lawyer of the Year” in 2012 and 2014, and Super Lawyers since 2008 which also most recently tapped her among the “Top 50 Female Mid-South Lawyers” in 2016 and as one of Alabama’s “Top 10 Lawyers” in 2015 and “Top 25 Women Lawyers” from 2008-2015. In April 2011, Porter became the first female lawyer in Alabama to be inducted into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, an organization devoted to promoting the integrity and honor of the legal profession and open only to 500 active trial lawyers in the world. In addition to her firm leadership, Porter has held many positions of leadership and service in the Bar, including her election as the second female president of the Birmingham Bar Association; a past member of the Executive Committee of the Birmingham Bar Association; a decade-long Commissioner of the Alabama State Bar; a former chair of Panel II of the Alabama State Bar Character and Fitness Committee; and a member, now Chair, of the Alabama Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure. She was recently appointed to the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission and is a Fellow of the Alabama Law Foundation. Porter graduated graduated summa cum laude from the University of the South in 1977, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa, among other honorary societies. She received her law degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1980.
ACLU files ethics complaint against Jeff Sessions over Senate testimony
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed an ethics complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his false testimony to the the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The complaint, filed Thursday with the Alabama State Bar, asks the body to investigate a potential rules violation after Sessions made false statements during sworn testimony at his confirmation hearing for attorney general. In his confirmation hearing, then-Senator Sessions was asked about any contact he had with members of the Russian government and responded at the time that he “did not have any communications with the Russians.” It has since come to light that Sessions met with Russia’s ambassador to the United States on at least two occasions. “False testimony made under oath is one of the most serious ethical offenses a lawyer can make and one any state bar should investigate vigorously,” said ACLU National Political Director Faiz Shakir. “Alabamians and Americans from all walks of life should be assured that the organizations responsible for regulating lawyers in their state takes ethical violations seriously — no matter how powerful that lawyer may be.” Alabama State Bar rules state that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.” Sessions has been a member of the bar since 1973. In the complaint, the ACLU says the report of the meetings with the Russian ambassador “does not square” with Sessions’s sworn Jan. 10 Senate testimony. “Few events are more corrosive to a democracy than having the Attorney General make false statements under oath about a matter the Justice Department is investigating,” added Christopher Anders, deputy director of the ACLU’s legislative office. “Jeff Sessions told a falsehood to the Senate, and did nothing to correct his statement until he was exposed by the press more than a month later. No attorney, whether just starting out as a new lawyer or serving as the country’s top law enforcement officer, should lie under oath. The Alabama bar must investigate this wrong fully and fairly.” The filed complaint can be read below:
