Timothy P. Chinaris

Education

Timothy P. Chinaris is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Information Resources, Director of Law Library and Professor of Law at Thomas Goode Jones School of Law where he directs the law library and teaches courses that include Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Insurance Law, and Antitrust Law. He previously served as Assistant Dean for Information Resources at Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia and as Associate Dean for Information Resources and Technology at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, Florida.

Professor Chinaris was Ethics Director of the Florida Bar from 1989-1997, where his responsibilities included overseeing the bar's popular "ethics hotline" service, which answers 20,000 phone calls per year from Florida Bar members. Professor Chinaris has a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Florida State University, received his Juris Doctor with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law, and earned his master's degree in Library and Information Studies from Florida State University. He is admitted to practice law in Alabama, Florida, and Texas. After graduating from law school, he clerked for the Texas Court of Appeals. Professor Chinaris was an associate with the Dallas law firm of Godwin and Carlton, P.C. before accepting a position with the Florida Bar in 1986.

Professor Chinaris writes on legal ethics for various publications, and speaks to local, state, and national organizations on a wide range of professional responsibility issues. He is a member and past chair of the Professional Ethics Committee of the Florida Bar, a member of the Alabama Ethics Commission, a member of the Alabama State Bar Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, and is active in legal and librarianship organizations. He served as an expert witness in the first case decided under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He authors the comprehensive legal ethics website "sunEthics.com."

Publications

We Are Who We Admit: The Need to Harmonize Law School Admission and Professionalism Process with Bar Admission Standards, 31 Miss. C. L. Rev 43 (2012).

Florida Ethics Guide for Legal Assistants and Attorneys Who Utilize Legal Assistants (4th ed., Fla. Bar Continuing Legal Education, 2006) (5th ed. forthcoming in 2009).

More Than the Camel's Nose: The Sarbanes-Oxley as Bad News for Lawyers, Clients and the Public, 31 Ohio No. Univ. L. Rev. 359 (2005).

Even Judges Don't Know Everything: A Call for a Presumption of Admissibility for Expert Witness Testimony in Lawyer Disciplinary Proceedings, 30 St. Mary's L. J. 825 (2005).

Co-author (with Elizabeth Clark Tarbert), Florida Professional Responsibility in 1999: The Rules of the Game, 24 Nova L. Rev. 199 (1999).

Co-author (with Elizabeth Clark Tarbert), Professional Responsibility: 1998 Survey of Florida Law, 23 Nova L. Rev. 161 (1998).

Co-author (with Elizabeth Clark Tarbert), Florida Professional Responsibility Law in 1997, 22 Nova L. Rev. 215 (1997).

Professional Responsibility: 1996 Survey of Florida Law, 21 Nova L. Rev. 231 (1996).

Professional Responsibility in Florida: The Year in Review, 1995, 20 Nova L. Rev. 223 (1995).

Answers to Frequently-Asked Ethics Questions, 65 Fla. Bar J. 49 (1991).