PROFESSOR EMERITA LAUREL TERRY CONCLUDES HER SERVICE AS IAOLE WEBMASTER
August 2023 — Professor Emerita Laurel Terry recently concluded over a decade of service as webmaster for the International Association of Legal Ethics, which is known as IAOLE. IAOLE is the nonprofit organization that sponsors the biennial ILEC international legal ethics conferences. IAOLE’s mission includes promoting “teaching, research, vocational training programs, and policy initiatives concerning legal ethics.”
As the IAOLE webpage explains, the idea of IAOLE first surfaced in 2010 at Stanford Law School, at the conclusion of the 2010 ILEC IV conference. At the end of the conference, Stanford Professor Deborah Rhode asked the conference attendees whether they supported the idea of creating a new international organization. The ILEC IV attendees endorsed this idea and Professor Rhode took the lead in making this a reality. After commenting on draft documents circulated by Professor Rhode, a volunteer steering committee approved IAOLE’s mission statement, bylaws, a list of officers and directors, and a draft letter to colleagues inviting them to join the [free] association. During the 2012 ILEC V conference in Banff, Canada, there was a brief IAOLE business meeting during which volunteers were solicited, a number of additional IAOLE committees were approved, and ILEC V conference attendees were encouraged to become members of IAOLE.
Professor Terry attended (and spoke at) both the 2010 ILEC IV conference at Stanford and the 2012 ILEC V conference in Banff and served on the steering committee that reviewed and commented on IAOLE’s initial documents. The initial webmaster for IAOLE was the Stanford Law Library. But in 2011, when Stanford expressed a need to step aside and no other webmaster could be found, Professor Terry volunteered to serve as IAOLE’s webmaster. She was greatly assisted in these efforts by the Penn State Dickinson Law IT Department and her student research assistants. Professor Terry continued as the volunteer IAOLE webmaster until May 2023, when Professor Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen of UC Irvine School of Law ably took over as webmaster.
The updated IAOLE webpage and the ILEC conferences continue to play an important role in connecting legal ethics academics from around the world. At the conclusion of her service as IAOLE webmaster, Professor Terry said “I’m very happy to have played a role in helping sustain a global network of legal ethics and lawyer regulation academics and stakeholders. I’m a strong believer in the important role of global networks and I’m glad I was able to help.”
Professor Emerita Laurel S. Terry, who held the inaugural H. Laddie Montague, Jr. Chair in Law and was Dickinson Law’s inaugural Associate Dean for Research and New Faculty Development, is a three-time Fulbright recipient who writes and speaks about the impact of globalization on the legal profession, especially with respect to regulatory issues. Her scholarship has identified emerging issues for the legal profession and urged stakeholder engagement, new initiatives, and regulatory reform. In addition to speaking at academic and professional conferences, she has been invited to speak about her scholarship to organizations that include the Conference of Chief Justices, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the National Organization of Bar Counsel, the National Conference of Bar Presidents, the CCBE, which represents EU’s legal profession and legal regulators, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the International Institute of Law Association Chief Executives, the International Bar Association, and the International Conference of Legal Regulators.