Dr. Paul Paton

Dr. Paul Paton, KC has over thirty years of experience as a practicing lawyer, senior political advisor, professor and university administrator. He is recognized internationally by the profession and academy as an expert in regulation and professional responsibility for lawyers, ethics in corporate contexts, the future of law/legal education, multidisciplinary practice/alternative business structures, and corporate governance issues. 

A frequent speaker at leading academic and professional conferences in the United States, Canada, England and internationally, his many contributions include service to the profession and the public through the International Bar Association,  where he has served as an officer of the International Bar Association Alternative and New Law Business Structures Committee since 2021 and as its Chair since 2023. He has spoken at IBA Annual Meetings in Seoul, Miami, Paris and Mexico City, and as part of the IBA special meeting on the regulation of lawyers at Chatham House in 2024. He was recently appointed by ABA President Bill Bay to a three-year term as a member of the American Bar Association International Trade in Legal Services Committee (2024-); he previously served as a Presidential Appointee to the ABA Professional Regulation Committee (2020-2023) and had been Reporter to ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission (2010-13). He spent five terms on the Canadian Bar Association's National Ethics and Professional Issues Committee, two as Vice Chair and two as Chair, and was Interim CEO of the CBA in 2021. He received awards from the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association, the Ontario Bar Association, and the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers for his contributions to the legal profession and legal education.

Formerly, he was the Dean of Law and Kennedy Chair in Law and Ethics, Chapman University (USA) (2023-2025) and was the Dean of Law, University of Alberta (Canada) (2014-19), becoming only the third person to serve as Dean of both Canadian and American law schools. He was previously Vice Provost of the University of the Pacific, director of a multidisciplinary undergraduate program at the University of Toronto, and held other administrative positions at the American and Canadian schools where he has been a full-time professor since 2004.

Following service as a clerk to the Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal (Canada), he spent a decade in practice before entering the academy full time, first as a commercial litigation associate and partner with Davies, Ward (Toronto) as Justice & Social Policy Advisor to the Premier of Ontario; and as in-house counsel to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP on ethics and regulatory matters, where he led the initiative launching the establishment of PwC Canada's affiliated law firms. 

Dr. Paton has been retained as an expert for ethics, regulatory and governance issues by private law firms in Canada and the US, by the Law Society of Upper Canada (as it then was) and by the Arizona Supreme Court's Task Force implementing recommending implementation of new rules for non-lawyer ownership of legal services delivery models. He held the pen on what became ABA Resolution 100 in 2023 to address anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing, and has published leading works on ethics for in-house counsel, and on lawyer responsibility to clients and the public dating back to the seminal article "Lawyers, Ethics and Enron" in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business and Finance in 2002. 

An experienced and effective keynote speaker and moderator for professional, corporate, and academic audiences around the globe, Paul was named Queen's Counsel (now KC), 2020, Alberta, Canada for his contributions to legal education and the legal profession. He holds a B.A. and LL.B from the University of Toronto), an  M.Phil in International Relations from Cambridge University and a JSM and JSD from Stanford. He currently lives in Orange, California, USA.

Recent Media Appearances:

California Lawyers Association, Communicating Across the Legal Pathway: Law School Deans Open Up About Engaging Students, Partnering with California Lawyers Association, and the Future of the Profession.