Kettlewell Honorees

Mr. Minkoff is one of New York State’s leading practitioners in the field of attorney ethics and professional responsibility, representing attorneys in a wide variety of matters including law firm partnership agreements, attorney departures and lateral hires, attorney discipline cases, legal fee disputes and legal malpractice and professional liability cases on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. He also provides ethics opinions and advice to a wide variety of law firm clients. He often serves as an expert witness in legal malpractice lawsuits and attorneys’ fees disputes.

Mr. Minkoff is a member of several Bar Ethics Committees, including the Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct (COSAC) and the Committee on Attorney Professionalism of the New York State Bar Association. He is also the Treasurer of the New York County Lawyers’ Association, Co-Chair of NYCLA’s Task Force on Professionalism, a member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services, and a past President of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. He has written extensively for the New York Professional Responsibility Report, The Professional Lawyer, The New York Law Journal, and other publications. Mr. Minkoff is the former co-Managing Editor of the New York Legal Ethics Reporter and author of Lexology’s New York Professional Negligence Navigator. He has taught Professional Responsibility at Columbia University School of Law, New York University School of Law, Fordham Law School, Brooklyn Law School and Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He is a frequent lecturer on the law of lawyering.

In addition, Mr. Minkoff represents businesses and individual professionals and executives in a wide variety of commercial litigation, including business break-ups, securities lawsuits, and domestic and international trade disputes. He has over 30 years of experience representing law firm partners and law firms in partnership formations, partnership disputes, lateral transitions and law-firm dissolutions. And he represents an internationally known petrochemist in an oil and gas venture dispute. Mr. Minkoff was a member of Chief Judge Lippman’s Task Force on Commercial Litigation in the 21st Century. He is on the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association.

Mr. Minkoff was named Best Lawyers in America 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” in Legal Malpractice Law - Defendants and 2011 and 2024 “New York Ethics and Professional Responsibility Lawyer of the Year.” He is also recognized by Best Lawyers for his work in Commercial Litigation, Ethics and Professional Responsibility, and Legal Malpractice Law - Defendants. He has been named a New York-area “Super Lawyer” for Professional Liability: Defense Work and Business Litigation by Super Lawyers magazine for eighteen consecutive years.

Mr. Minkoff is a graduate of Columbia Law School (JD, 1980). He was an attorney at the Nassau County Legal Aid Society (1980-83), and was associated with Obermaier Morvillo & Abramowitz, P.C. (1983-85) and Owen & Fennell (1985-87). Mr. Minkoff was a member of Fennell & Minkoff (1987-94) and Beldock Levine & Hoffman (1994-2001) before joining Frankfurt Kurnit. He is admitted to practice in New York and local federal courts.

Peter Jarvis is a partner in Holland & Knight’s Portland office, where he practices primarily in the area of attorney professional responsibility and risk management. Mr. Jarvis advises lawyers, law firms, corporate legal departments and government legal departments about all aspects of the law governing lawyers. This includes, but is not limited to, matters relating to conflicts of interest, duties of confidentiality, other legal or professional ethics issues, advice on the avoidance of civil or criminal liability, law firm breakups, and questions relating to law firm or legal department structure and operation. Mr. Jarvis also serves as an expert witness and is an avid lecturer for public and private/in-house continuing legal education seminars. He has written numerous publications and is a co-author of The Law of Lawyering (4th Ed. 2015), one of the country’s leading professional responsibility treatises.

Mr. Jarvis has decades of experience as a trusted adviser to lawyers and also draws on his substantial background as a civil litigation attorney in matters involving antitrust, appellate, business tort, general contract, insurance, product liability, tax and Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) concerns. He is a past president of the national Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) and is a regular speaker both at APRL events and at the American Bar Association’s (ABA) National Conference on Professional Responsibility.

In 2019, the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility honored Mr. Jarvis with its prestigious Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award. This award is given annually to one individual whose career commitment in areas such as legal ethics, disciplinary enforcement and lawyer professionalism demonstrates the best accomplishment of lawyers. It is Peter’s second award from the ABA.

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Jarvis was the partner-in-charge of the Portland office of a multistate law firm and was co-leader of that firm’s national professional responsibility/risk management practice group. He also served for many years as the in-house ethics counsel for a multistate law firm. Mr. Jarvis was honored to contribute an article, “Geoff Hazard: My Views as a Law Student, Mentee and Coauthor,” in the Hastings Law Journal tribute to former Yale Law School Professor Geoff Hazard.

A California lawyer and past president of APRL, Ron practiced in the area of legal malpractice for more than 40 years and continues to author the leading treatise in the field, the five-volume work, “Legal Malpractice,” which is updated and published annually by Thomson Reuters. He is editor of the annual Law Office Guide to Purchasing Legal Malpractice Insurance.  Ron has written over 70 articles on a variety of topics on lawyers’ liability.  He has given over 170 oral presentations on a wide range of related topics.  Since its inception he has been certified by the California Board of Legal Specialization as a legal specialist in Legal Malpractice Law. Mr. Mallen chaired the ABA Standing Committee on Lawyers Professional Liability and the ABA Special Committee on Medical Professional Liability and was a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Lawyer Competence. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the American Law Institute, where he was a member of the consultative group on the Restatement (Third) of The Law of Lawyering. He was Chair of the Editorial Board for the ABA/BNA Lawyers Manual on Professional Conduct and was selected as a Fellow of Litigation Counsel of America. He  was first listed in U.S. News & World Report’s annual list, The Best Lawyers in America, in 1995, and in 2014 was named Lawyer of the Year in the Legal Malpractice Law category for San Francisco while also being recognized in the category of “Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law.” He chaired a variety of committees of the International Association Of Defense Counsel. Since 1982 he was selected to appear in Who’s Who in America.

A California lawyer and past president of APRL, Ellen started her career as bar counsel with the California State Bar.  She is a California State Bar Certified Specialist in the area of Legal Malpractice Law who has long focused her practice on the defense of attorneys in civil actions, regulatory and licensure proceedings. She also consults with and advises lawyers in legal ethics and risk management, and serves as an expert witness in legal malpractice matters. Additionally, Ellen previously served as a member of the California State Bar’s Pilot Program Interaction Advisory Committee, addressing the effect of the Lawyer Assistance Program on the State Bar disciplinary system. She served on the Advisory Rules Revision Committee of the Executive Committee of the State Bar Court. She also serves on the United States District Court, Central District, Standing Committee on Discipline.  She has long been active with the Los Angeles County Bar Association, serving as a member of the Board of Trustees (2005-2009) and Assistant Vice President (2009-2012), and has served on numerous of its committees including, but not limited to, the Committee for Evaluation of Professional Standards and the State Bar; the Judicial appointments Committee; and the Ethics 2000 Liaison Committee.  Ellen has been a member of the LACBA Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee for decades (Chair, 1996), and serves on the Ad Hoc President’s Advisory Committee on Women in the Legal Profession.  She also served as a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Senior Lawyers Division Executive Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on State Bar Admissions Regulation Reform Proposals.  Ellen served as a member of the Editorial Board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct, as a member to the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.  She is a charter member of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. Ellen is a lifetime member and past president of the National Association of Women Lawyers.

A Florida lawyer, Jack is a founding member of APRL and served as its third president.  He has spent his entire career in the field of professional responsibility. He went into private practice in 1983 after working as Bar Counsel for The Florida Bar for more than eight years. Since then, he has represented more than 2,000 lawyers, Bar applicants, and judges in disciplinary proceedings and Board of Bar Examiner admission cases. Jack has also written countless ethics opinions and testified as an expert on professional responsibility matters in both federal and state courts.  Jack devotes his efforts to serving his profession and the public. He is a past President of the Board of North Florida Legal Services, a federally funded legal aid provider, and has served on many committees including the ABA’s Standing Committee on Client Protection and The Florida Bar’s Professional Ethics Committee. Additionally, Jack taught Professional Responsibility as an Adjunct Professor at Florida State University College of Law. He has also participated in many seminars on ethics, lawyer discipline, bar admissions and professional responsibility. Among those seminars was one jointly sponsored by APRL and the State Department of the United States in June 2000 in Shanghai, China. Jack has also been a member of ABA accreditation teams evaluating law schools’ compliance with the ABA’s standards for law school certification.

Mark Harrison was an Arizona lawyer and one of the country’s most respected leaders in the field of legal and judicial ethics and professional liability.  Mark was revered in the Arizona legal community.  Mark cared deeply about the legal profession and access to justice, and believed it was his obligation not just to care but to act. His impact went beyond his own law practice, as he devoted his prodigious determination on behalf of local, state and national bar associations, as well as countless civic and charitable organizations. His dedication to the profession and the Arizona legal community never waned. He served as President of the State Bar of Arizona Board of Governors in 1975 and was again elected to the Board at the age of 85, 40 years later. His advocacy for civil and social justice included service as President of the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood in Arizona and as the first Chair of the Board of Directors of Teach For America Phoenix.  He chaired the ABA Commission to revise the Model Code of Judicial Conduct and Justice at Stake, a national non-profit organization dedicated to preserving fair and impartial courts. He represented countless lawyers facing disciplinary proceedings. He taught legal ethics as an adjunct professor at both the University of Arizona and Arizona State University Law Schools. In addition to the Charles W. Kettlewell Award, he also received the ABA’s Michael Franck Award for Professional Responsibility, the Burnham “Hod” Greeley Award for contributions to understanding the role of the judiciary, the State Bar’s Walter E. Craig Lifetime Achievement Award, the Judge Learned Hand Award for Community Service, and the Planned Parenthood Peggy Goldwater Award.  Mark passed away on January 11, 2021.

Jeanne Gray began her career in professional responsibility as Bar Counsel with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers.  In addition to being admitted in Massachusetts, she was a member of the Florida bar.  A founding member of APRL, Director of the ABA Center of Professional Responsibility, a dear friend and colleague of Chuck Kettlewell, and a visionary leader in developing legal ethics policy through publication of scholarly resources, professional consultation services, promotion of competence and professionalism, and providing lawyers assistance in solving ethical conundrums with an unerring view toward client protection.