Dr. Paul D. Paton
Appointed the University of the Pacific's first Vice Provost in August 2012, Dr. Paul D. Paton provides leadership in the university's academic affairs portfolio, including direct oversight of the Associate or Assistant Provosts for Academic Affairs, Research, and Professional & Continuing Education, the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Director of International Programs and Services. He currently chairs the University's Information Strategy and Policy Committee, directs market research for new programs, and collaborates on academic renovation projects and facilities utilization. He has been tasked with primary responsibility for leading university-wide collaborative efforts for student success, learning and retention. He acts on behalf of the Provost as required. Pacific enrolls approximately 6700 students on three campuses in Stockton, Sacramento and San Francisco, with 120 academic undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in liberal arts, science, social science, Dentistry, Law, Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Engineering, Business, Education, International Studies, and the Conservatory of Music.
Paton joined the university in 2008 and holds a tenured appointment as Professor of Law and Director of the Ethics Across the Professions Initiative at Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. He has a B.A. (Moss Scholar) and LL.B. from the University of Toronto, an M.Phil in international relations from Cambridge, and J.S.M. and J.S.D. degrees in law from Stanford, where he was a Fellow in the Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession. Prior to entering the academy full-time in 2004 as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at Queen's University, Paton clerked for the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, then practiced as commercial litigation associate and partner in one of Canada's leading law firms, as Justice and Social Policy Advisor to the Premier of Ontario, and as in-house counsel for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He had also previously been Associate and Acting Director of the undergraduate Canadian Studies program at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Paton's research focuses on ethics in corporate contexts, legal ethics and lawyer regulation in comparative perspective, and on accountants and lawyers in corporate governance. He has taught law students in the United States and Canada courses in professional responsibility, corporate governance, business associations, ethics for the government and public lawyer, and other subjects. He is a regular instructor in continuing education programs on ethics for lawyers and other professionals across North America. Twice named a Fellow of the US National Institute on Teaching Ethics and Professionalism, his articles on legal ethics, globalization and professional responsibility issues have appeared in leading academic journals in the United States and in Canada, notably on lawyer regulation, multidisciplinary practice, ethics for in-house counsel, and lawyers in the Enron scandal. He served two terms as Chair of the Canadian Bar Association's National Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee from 2009-2011, and from 2010-2012 was Reporter for the American Bar Association's Ethics 20/20 Commission, with primary responsibility for its work on Alternative Legal Practice Structures.
He has addressed the International Institute of Law Association Chief Executives; the U.S. National Council of Bar Presidents; the Federation of Law Societies of Canada; the Association of Corporate Counsel (SF Bay Area Chapter); various provincial law societies and state bars; and midyear or annual meetings of the International Bar Association, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association, the American Association of Law Schools and the ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility. As a media commentator he has been interviewed, published or quoted in leading outlets, including the Economist, Legal Week (U.K.), the ABA Journal, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Globe and Mail, Report on Business Television, and the Sacramento Bee.