The State Bar Association of North Dakota Summer 2015 Gavel Magazine | Page 20

North Dakota’s Justice Crothers
Leads on ABA Ethics Committee

D A N T R AY N O R
ABA Delegate
The announcement that North Dakota
Supreme Court Justice Daniel Crothers was
appointed to the ABA’s Standing Committee
on Ethics and Professional Responsibility is
a big deal for North Dakota. This Standing
Committee has focused on the development
of model national ethics standards for
lawyers and judges and drafts ABA Formal
Ethics Opinions. For several years, Justice
Crothers has been one of the leaders in
our profession on issues of professional
responsibility with a particular interest in
client protection and cybersecurity.
Justice Crothers was kind enough to respond
to several questions about his involvement
in the ABA and recent appointment to this
important Standing Committee on Ethics
and Professional Responsibility.
Q: What (or who) got you involved in the
ABA?
Justice Crothers: I have long been an ABA
member, but my active participation began
about 15 years ago.  The multijurisdictional
practice of law was a key topic while I was
president of the State Bar of North Dakota. 
I worked on that issue with many other state
bar presidents and many people within the
ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility
(“CPR”).  Through those contacts, I came
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THE GAVEL

to know the Center Director, Jeanne Gray,
and Senior Lawyer John Holtaway, who
along with our own James S. Hill, eventually
convinced me to seek appointment to one
of the Center’s standing committees.  Mr.
Holtaway was legal counsel to the ABA
Standing Committee on Client Protection
and, not surprisingly, I ended up on that
committee for several years as a member,
several years as the chair and several years as
a “special advisor.” Once someone becomes
a known quantity within the Center,
opportunity to serve in other positions arise,
and I have had the pleasure of working on a
number of interesting areas of professional
responsibility—including my current one
as chair of the CPR policy implementation
committee.

for cybersecurity—the ABA staff knew I
regularly taught seminars to lawyers and
judges about ethics and technology.  In 2012
the ABA President formed a Cybersecurity
Task Force and asked the CPR to assign a
person to provide the ethics perspective.  As
a person who was not sufficiently afraid of
technology, I was nominated and ultimately
appointed by the ABA President to serve on
the Task Force that, among other important
accomplishments, collectively wrote and
published a very useful book titled “The
ABA Cybersecurity Handbook.”

Q: What is the most unique experience
you’ve had as a result of your involvement
in the ABA Center for Professional
Responsibility?

Justice Cro \