Defending Detested Clients & Making Unpopular Decisions: Lawyers and Their Professional Responsibilities
About the Presenters

Frank H. Armani has been in solo practice, doing exclusively pro bono work, since his retirement from Armani, Fitzpatrick, Snyder & Armani in 1985. In 1973 he and Francis Belge gained international prominence as assigned attorneys in the defense of Robert Garrow on murder charges. The lawyers’ struggle to protect the confidences of their client, who told them that he had killed other teenagers and where the bodies were, remains a central one in the teaching of legal ethics. As a result of that case, Mr. Armani co-authored the book “Privileged Information” with Tom Alibrandi; 20th Century Fox made the movie “Sworn to Silence,” in which Mr. Armani had a small part and served as technical advisor; and Mr. Armani was featured on a station WETA-TV documentary “Ethics on Trial.” Mr. Armani was the first chairman of the Onondaga Bar Association Law Day Committee and one of the founders of the Onondaga and New York State Bar committees of Lawyers Helping Lawyers. He received his BA in political science in 1950, and his law degree in 1956, both from Syracuse University.

John P. Curp, Partner: Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. Mr. Curp is a partner in the Columbus office of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. He graduated with University Honors and as a member of Beta Gamma Sigma from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he received his undergraduate degree in business finance.  Mr. Curp earned his law degree from the Indiana University School of Law. He has a multidisciplinary business practice with an emphasis on real property, commercial transactions, land use, enterprise zone, tax issues and creditors' rights. He is a member of the Ohio Bar Association, and as a member of the Columbus Bar Association, he serves as Chair of the Professionalism Committee and as a member of the Admissions Committee.   Mr. Curp is also a Fellow of the Ohio State Bar Foundation and serves on several community and charitable boards including the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Central Ohio.

Lance Tibbles, Professor of Law and Director, Ethics Institute: Capital University Law School. Professor Tibbles is an authority on health law issues and legal ethics. He has written extensively in the biomedical ethics areas of informed consent, definition of death, refusing life-prolonging treatment, reproductive rights, and human experimentation, as well as in other medical-legal topics, property, and governmental grievance response mechanisms. He is a frequent speaker on medical-legal topics and is a past recipient of a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship to study the prolonging of life when there is no hope of recovery. He was a Fellow in Law, Science, and Medicine at Yale Law School from 1974 to 1976. Professor Tibbles has been a member of the Capital University Law faculty since 1976 and teaches Professional Responsibility, Health Law, Bioethics Law, and Control of Research and Therapy. He served as associate dean for the Law School from 1986 to 1990 and is director of the Ethics Institute. He is the chair of the Ohio State Bar Association's Committee on Legal Education and is a member of the Special Commission on the Education of Lawyers. He is chair of Capital University's Research Review Committee and serves on the Professional Ethics and Grievance Committee of the Columbus Bar Association, which investigates violations of attorney disciplinary rules. Professor Tibbles has a bachelor’s degree, with honors, and a J.D. from the University of Oregon.

Jonathan Coughlan is Counsel for the Supreme Court of Ohio Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

David A. Goldberger, Isadore and Ida Topper Professor of Law: Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Professor Goldberger teaches a civil clinic practicum, Constitutional Law, and a course on the First Amendment. He came to Ohio State in 1980, after serving as Legal and Legislative Director of the Illinois Division of the American Civil Liberties Union. Prior to working at the ACLU, he was a staff attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, specializing in law reform legislation. While in practice, he represented clients in a wide range of civil liberties cases. His research and writing focus on the free speech decisions of the United States Supreme Court. He continues to litigate civil liberties cases on behalf of clients unable to afford counsel. Goldberger earned bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Chicago.

Dennis W. McNamara, McNamara Law Office. Dennis W. McNamara has been in private practice since 1976, when he graduated from The Ohio State University College of Law. He has handled criminal defense cases for 32 years, and has handled them exclusively for the last 20 years. Mr. McNamara practices throughout Ohio in trial and appellate courts. He also practices in federal courts in the Southern and Northern Districts of Ohio, the Six Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Holly Wallinger, Staff Attorney to the Honorable Richard S. Sheward: Franklin County Court of Common Pleas (OH). Holly Wallinger is a 2006 graduate of Capital University Law School, graduating summa cum laude.  She has Bachelor of Arts (1986) and Master of Arts (1988) degrees in English from The Ohio State University.  She was admitted to the Bar in November, 2006.

From 1988 until 1993, Holly worked in the publishing industry, as Managing Editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, in New York City, and as Production Manager of Folio and Publishing News in Stamford, Connecticut. Currently, Holly is Staff Attorney to the Honorable Richard S. Sheward of Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.  She has held this position since July 2006.