The Northeast Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel has taken a solid step to encourage local law students to make a commitment to ethics in their practice of law. For the second year, our chapter has given an award of $1,000 to each of six local law students who were commended by their professors for their exceptional commitment to ethics in the course of their studies or clinical work.

The law schools, firm community, and judiciary embraced the initiative, which is helping to encourage and promote ethical behavior at the law school stage and to show that ethics is valued by the corporate world in which they will soon become involved.

Our April 26 gala dinner, at which the Professional Responsibility Awards were presented, was underwritten by the generous contributions of Holland & Knight; LeBoeuf, Lamb, Green & MacRae; McDermott Will & Emery; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo; Nutter, McClennen & Fish; Ropes & Gray; Sherin and Lodgen; Sullivan & Worcester and WilmerHale. Tyco International generously stepped forward as the corporate sponsor for the awards, and New England In-House, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and the Boston Business Journal promoted the program as media sponsors.

The students’ smiles were wide as they accepted their awards from Barry Nagler, chairman of the ACC’s national board of directors, and a member of the ACC-Northeast board of directors. A keynote address was given by Herbert Wilkins, former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Huber Distinguished Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School.

ACC-Northeast will continue to develop this initiative, seeking to offer greater incentives to students to become nominated for the award, and reaching out to corporate and law firm sponsors for support.

To learn more about our chapter, please visit our website at acca.com, or call our executive director Louise Rothery at (781) 631-2246.

William O’Brien, corporate counsel at Hewlett-Packard, is president of the Northeast Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.