Mark O’Neill, Esquire, to Receive 2010 American Inns of Court Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Award for Professionalism and Ethics

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mark O’Neill, Esquire, a prominent Ohio attorney, has been selected to receive the American Inns of Court’s prestigious 2010 Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Award for Professionalism and Ethics. The award will be presented by Patrick M. McLaughlin, Esquire, at the annual American Inns of Court Celebration of Excellence, hosted by Justice Clarence Thomas, at the Supreme Court of the United States on October 23, 2010.

The Powell Award is presented annually to recognize a lifetime devoted to the highest standards of ethical practice, competence, and professionalism. This award is conferred upon a senior lawyer nominated from among the country’s most respected practitioners, judges, government officials, journalists, philanthropists, or other community leaders and selected by a panel of representatives from both the judiciary and the American Inns of Court. Previous winners include former Justices Powell, William J. Brennan, Jr., and Anthony M. Kennedy, and last year, The Honorable Louis H. Pollak, Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

O’Neill was an attorney with Weston Hurd LLC in Cleveland, Ohio, where he practiced from 1952 until his retirement in 2009. He specialized in legal and medical malpractice cases after spending much of his early career on school desegregation. He spent more than 20 years representing the state Board of Education in the Cleveland School desegregation case.

O’Neill served in the Navy and the Marines before and during his college years. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1949 and from Harvard Law School in 1952. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel. He has served as president of the Cleveland Defense Attorneys Group, the Judge Anthony J. Celebrezze American Inn of Court (renamed in 2006 as the Judge John M. Manos American Inn of Court, and the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. He was named a “Trial Superstar” by the Cleveland Bar Association in 1988, and has also received the 2010 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Sixth Circuit.

The American Inns of Court fosters excellence in professionalism, ethics, civility, and legal skills. The American Inns of Court membership includes more than 27,000 federal, state, and local judges, lawyers, law professors and law students in more than 350 chapters across the United States. Additionally, there are more than 85,000 alumni members. The organization is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.