Michael S. Greco
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Michael S. Greco (born November 22, 1942 in Rende, Italy), a partner in the Boston office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, LLP, is President of the American Bar Association[1]. He became president in August 2005, at the Association’s Annual Meeting in Chicago.
A trial lawyer with more than 30 years of litigation experience, he has also served as arbitrator and mediator in complex business and other disputes on both the state and national levels.
He earned his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1972, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Boston College Law Review and as class president, and then clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He earned his B.A. in English from Princeton University in 1965. Prior to law school he taught English at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H.
He has long been active in the ABA, including serving in the House of Delegates since 1985 and as the elected State Delegate from Massachusetts during 1993-2004. He has chaired the Association’s Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, Executive Committee of the Conference of State Delegates, Steering Committee of the Nominating Committee, the ABA Day in Washington Planning Committee, and other committees. After September 11, 2001, he served on the ABA Task Force on Terrorism and the Law, and also served on the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security and the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.
In Massachusetts he served as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the New England Bar Association, the New England Bar Foundation and the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. As MBA president he and the governor appointed a blue-ribbon Commission on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children, whose report and recommendations led to enactment of new statutes protecting the legal rights of children. He chaired the first-in-the-nation Massachusetts Legal Needs for the Poor Assessment and Plan for Action, and was co-founder and co-chair of Bar Leaders for Preservation of Legal Services for the Poor, a national grassroots organization that helped preserve the Legal Services Corporation in the 1980s. By appointment of the Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court he chaired the Court’s Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services.
He also served on the Board of Overseers of the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and as Vice-Chair of the Board of Bar Overseers of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He served for eight years on Gov. William Weld’s state Judicial Nominating Council, and on the Commission on Federal Judicial Appointments.
He spent his youth in Hinsdale, Illinois, and has resided in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with his wife and children for the past thirty years.
Additional information on Greco's life and career can be found in the Marquis chronicles Who's Who in America , as well as Who's Who in American Law.
[edit] ABA Presidency
The over-arching theme of President Greco's term of office was renaissance – a rebirth and reaffirmation of the legal profession's core values and America's constitutional principles. His priorities as President included protecting the rights and freedoms of American citizens, safeguarding the independence of the judiciary and other institutions of America's democracy, addressing the legal needs of lower-income citizens, advancement of women, people of color and persons with disabilities in the legal profession, and improvements to the Association and the legal profession. During his term of office he created two ABA Commissions, five ABA Task Forces, and several Special Committees to implement his presidential initiatives.
The ABA Commission on a Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession helped re-invigorate lawyers' historical commitment to providing pro bono legal services to those in need and volunteering public service in communities throughout America. Through the Commission's substantial efforts, a renaissance of idealism is evident in the legal profession and, with the collaboration of state and other bar associations across America, will continue to grow in coming years for the benefit of all Americans.
The ABA Commission on Civic Education and the Separation of Powers addressed the troubling but reliably documented fact that approximately half of Americans do not know the basics about their constitutional democracy due to lack of adequate civics education and therefore are not knowledgeable enough to protect vigorously the institutions of their democracy particularly an independent judiciary. The Commission's distinguished members will continue their efforts during the 2006-07 Association year, with the continuing enthusiastic participation of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, to influence civics education policy in the fifty states.
He appointed the ABA Task Force on Access to Civil Justice to consider an idea whose time has come in America: to provide desperately needed legal services to millions of poor Americans, 70-80% of whose legal needs annually go unmet, through creation and recognition of a defined right to counsel, paid by the state, in certain serious legal problems that threaten one's basic human needs, including family, shelter, and health. Such a right currently exists in numerous civilized nations and has existed in the US for indigents facing criminal charges since the 1963 US Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright.
At the August 2006 Annual Meeting in Honolulu the ABA's 550-member House of Delegates adopted new policies implementing all the recommendations of the Renaissance and Civic Education Commissions and the Task Force on Access to Civil Justice. In an historic vote for the Association, legal profession and society, the House voted unanimously to support creation of a defined right to civil counsel for America's poor.
He also appointed the ABA Task Force on Hurricane Katrina as that hurricane was still raging in order that the legal profession could provide free legal services to victims of Katrina and other hurricanes that devastated the Gulf States in the fall of 2005. The Task Force coordinated an unprecedented effort by thousands of America's lawyers to provide desperately needed legal services to tens of thousands of hurricane victims.
The ABA Task Force on the Attorney-Client Privilege continued to lead the Association's efforts vigorously to oppose the US Department of Justice's assault on American citizens' attorney-client privilege and to protect the bedrock right of Americans to representation by counsel, without federal government interference or coercion, as guaranteed by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution. At the Hawaii Annual Meeting the ABA House of Delegates adopted new policies protecting the privilege and work product doctrine opposing the Justice Department's efforts to erode them.
He also appointed two bi-partisan, blue-ribbon task forces – the ABA Task Force on Domestic Surveillance in the Fight against Terrorism, and the ABA Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine – both comprised of distinguished constitutional scholars and former government leaders and judges, to protect Americans' constitutional rights, the doctrines of separation of powers and checks and balances, and America's democratic form of government.
The Task Force on Domestic Surveillance carefully considered the US government's troubling program of spying on American citizens and issued a unanimous report and unanimous recommendations urging the President to respect the roles of Congress and the Judiciary, to comply with the Constitution and existing federal laws, and urged immediate corrective action by Congress and the Courts. The ABA House of Delegates at its February 2006 Midyear Meeting in Chicago adopted the Task Force's recommendations by a near-unanimous vote.
The Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements thoroughly considered the use, and misuse, by a President of “signing statements” that indicate an intention, despite signing them, not to enforce new laws enacted by Congress. The Task Force issued a unanimous report with unanimous recommendations concluding that such misuse by a President of signing statements violates the Constitution, encroaches unlawfully on the powers of Congress, and poses a direct and grave threat to the separation of powers doctrine and the system of checks and balances that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries. The Task Force urged immediate legislative action by Congress and judicial review by the Supreme Court of the United States to resolve the serious constitutional issues presented. At the August 2006 Annual Meeting in Honolulu the ABA House of Delegates adopted the Task Force's recommendations by an overwhelming vote.
During his presidency he also encouraged and supported two unprecedented major diversity conferences, one that addressed the imperative of ensuring the flow of young people of color in the pipeline to the legal profession, and the other that addressed the employment needs of lawyers with physical and mental disabilities.
He also supported efforts of the Commission on Women in the Profession to ensure the continued advancement of women in the legal profession, particularly women of color whose discrimination and professional plight was documented in a several years-long survey and final report released at the Association's August Annual Meeting in Honolulu.
He also encouraged and assisted the ABA Commission on Immigration Law to develop new Association policies to help address the situation of America's twelve million undocumented immigrants. The Commission's report and recommendations, which were overwhelmingly approved by the House of Delegates at the February Midyear Meeting, are helping Congress in its efforts to craft appropriate legislation.
He also created, and appointed the boards of directors of, three new ABA legal centers. The ABA Center for Racial and Ethnic Diversity was created to consolidate and coordinate the Association's many diversity programs. The ABA Center for Rule of Law Initiatives was created to consolidate and enhance the Association's growing and increasingly important international rule of law programs in Africa, Asia, Central Europe/Eurasia, and Latin America, which provide legal technical assistance and training to emerging democracies in more than forty countries on five continents, including former republics of the Soviet Union. The ABA Resource Center for Access to Justice Initiatives will assist efforts throughout the United States to improve ways by which legal services are delivered to our nation's poor.
He supported and helped implement an historic conference that the ABA in partnership with other organizations held in Washington, DC in November 2006 that had been planned for two years – the first ever and highly successful ABA International Rule of Law Symposium. It was attended by more than 400 lawyers, judges, academicians, and world leaders from more than 40 nations on five continents to develop strategies for advancing the rule of law and justice throughout the world.
In his effort to unify the legal profession throughout the world to advance and protect the rule of the law in all nations, at a Paris conference of world bar leaders in November 2005 he authored and thereafter advocated the adoption and ratification of a Statement of Core Principles of the legal profession. The Statement was adopted unanimously by the one hundred world bar leaders in Paris, by the American Bar Association House of Delegates at its Midyear Meeting in February 2006, and since then by dozens of world bars.
During his term as president he negotiated and executed on behalf of the Association collaboration agreements between the ABA and the national bars of China, Russia and Japan, in order to provide for mutually beneficial exchanges of lawyers, legal knowledge and expertise, to conduct joint legal education programs, and to advance justice and the rule of law.
As a result of the year-long efforts and final report and recommendations of the special ABA Long Range Planning Committee that he appointed, the ABA Board of Governors in June 2006 unanimously adopted the first Strategic Plan in the Association's history and approved creation of the Association's first permanent Long Range Planning Committee.
The ABA Executive Director Search Committee that he appointed conducted a year-long national search for the Association's new Executive Director, who took office on September 1, 2006.
As ABA President he traveled on more than 300 of his 365 days in office to every part of the United States, including forty-five states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, and to more than twenty-five nations, delivered more than 275 speeches, testified before Congressional committees and met with hundreds of government leaders abroad and in the US, lawyers and judges, bar association and civic groups, and thousands of persons throughout the world.
Background - In addition to serving as its President, he has long been active in the American Bar Association, including serving on the Board of Governors, in the House of Delegates for more than twenty years, and as the elected ABA State Delegate from Massachusetts during 1993-2004. He chaired the Association's Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, the Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities, and the Executive Committee of the Conference of State Delegates, the Steering Committee of the Nominating Committee, the ABA Day in Washington Planning Committee, and other committees. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, he served on the ABA Task Force on Terrorism and the Law, and helped develop ABA policies relating to imperative of balancing national security and constitutional freedoms so that both are protected.
In Massachusetts, he served as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the New England Bar Association, the New England Bar Foundation and the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. As MBA president, among other initiatives, he and the Governor appointed a blue-ribbon Commission on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children, whose report and recommendations led to enactment of new statutes protecting the legal rights of children. He chaired the first-in-the-nation Massachusetts Legal Needs for the Poor Assessment and Plan for Action, and was co-founder and for seven years co-chair of Bar Leaders for the Preservation of Legal Services for the Poor, a national grassroots organization that helped preserve the Legal Services Corporation in the 1980s and early 1990s. By appointment of the Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court he chaired the Court's Special Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services in the 1990s.
He served for eight years on Gov. William W. Weld's Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Council, and in 1993-94 served on Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Senator John F. Kerry's Special Commission on Federal Judicial Appointments that recommended candidates for vacancies on the federal bench, US Attorney and US Marshal. He also served as Vice-Chair of the Board of Bar Overseers of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and on the Board of Overseers of the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
He earned his A.B. in English from Princeton University in 1965, and his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1972, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Boston College Law Review and class president. After completing his legal studies and prior to entering the practice of law he clerked for the Hon. Leonard P. Moore on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and held an academic Fellowship at the University of Florence Law Faculty in Italy. Prior to law school he taught English at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H.
Personal - He was raised and educated in Hinsdale, Illinois. During the past thirty-seven years has resided with his wife and children in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
[edit] Further Information
Areas of Practice
President Greco is a trial lawyer with more than three decades of litigation experience in business, employment and real estate law. He has also served as arbitrator or mediator in complex disputes on both the state and national levels in business, professional sports, intellectual property and computer software cases in which the damages have exceeded $100 million.
Professional Background
Prior to law school he taught English at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. After law school he spent a year as law clerk to the Hon. Leonard P. Moore on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and a year as a Fellow at the Institute of Comparative Law, University of Florence, Italy.
Professional/Civic Activities
President Greco is the 129th President of the 400,000-member American Bar Association (ABA). He has long been active in the ABA, serving in the ABA House of Delegates since 1985 and as ABA State Delegate from Massachusetts since 1993. He chaired the Association’s Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary and Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, among other committees. After September 11, 2001, he served on the ABA Task Force on Terrorism and the Law and helped to develop ABA policy on the use of military tribunals and the legislation that became the US Patriot Act.
He is a member of the American Law Institute.
He also has served as President of the Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA), the New England Bar Association, and the New England Bar Foundation. As MBA President he and the Governor appointed a blue-ribbon Commission on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children, whose report and recommendations led to enactment of new statutes protecting the legal rights of children in the Commonwealth. He chaired the first in the nation Massachusetts Legal Services for the Poor Needs Assessment and Plan for Action, which served as a model for the subsequent ABA study on the legal needs of the poor in America, and he was co-founder and co-chair of Bar Leaders for Preservation of Legal Services for the Poor, a national grassroots organization that helped preserve the Legal Services Corporation in the 1980s.
Mr. Greco is a member of the Board of Directors of the New England (Business) Council, and since 1998 has served as Chair of the ground breaking Creative Economy Initiative, a regional economic/cultural development effort designed to attract investment in New England’s Creative Economy.
His public service activities include serving for ten years on the Board of Overseers of the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, as Vice-Chair of the Board of Bar Overseers of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), Chair of the SJC’s Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services, and Chair of the Board of Directors, Massachusetts Lawyers Alliance for World Security. He served for eight years on the Executive Committee of Governor William F. Weld’s (State) Judicial Nominating Council, and as a member of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Senator John F. Kerry’s Commission on (Federal) Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments. He was counsel to the Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Board of Bar Overseers in United States v. Klubock, and Special Assistant Attorney General in the Dorchester Court case.
Court Admissions
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and all trial courts Supreme Court of the United States U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts United States Tax Court
Bar Admissions
Bar of Massachusetts Speaking Engagements As a lecturer and writer he has addressed issues of trial practice, employment law, environmental law, professional malpractice, legal ethics, and arbitration, and for two years served as President of the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc.
Education
J.D., Boston College Law School (1972) (Editor in Chief, Boston College Law Review)
B.A., Princeton University (1965)
