Bar group elects president from Pa.

Pennsylvania bar regulator Paul Burgoyne has been elected president of the National Organization of Bar Counsel.

Burgoyne serves as deputy chief disciplinary counsel of the state Supreme Court's lawyer disciplinary board. The board makes recommendations to the Supreme Court on attorney disciplinary matters, including on whether lawyers should be suspended or disbarred.

The National Organization of Bar Counsel is a professional group that represents lawyers from agencies that regulate lawyers in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

As head of the NOBC, Burgoyne, 67, said he would work to aid cooperation among states on attorney discipline. Also, as the practice of law becomes more global, Burgoyne said, U.S. bar regulators need to work with their counterparts overseas.

Some barriers have eased, "but it doesn't help if a lawyer can go somewhere else," he said. "In some cases, states are not even allowed to share information" with an investigator from another state.

Burgoyne works out of the disciplinary board's Philadelphia office. He began there as staff counsel in 1981, was appointed counsel in charge in 1987, and was named deputy chief counsel in 1993. Before the disciplinary board, he was a Legal Aid lawyer in Chester County and was in private practice for a time.

A graduate of La Salle University, he earned his law degree from Rutgers University Law School-Camden.

The NOBC, besides advising states on how to improve law regulation, advises the American Bar Association on legal ethics rules.

Sam Stretton, who defends lawyers and judges in disciplinary proceedings, said that Burgoyne had improved disciplinary procedures, and that his appointment to the national group would be a plus for lawyers in Pennsylvania.

"He has been a good force for improving the system," Stretton said. "He is very capable."

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