National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws

211 E. Ontario St., Suite 1300, Chicago, IL 60611
tel 312-915-0195, fax 312-915-0187

For Immediate Release

West Virginia Attorney Heads National Law Group
NCCUSL Officers and Board Elected

August 23, 1999 - John L. McClaugherty, an attorney in Charleston, West Virginia, has been elected to serve a two-year term as president of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).
NCCUSL is an organization of more than 300 lawyers, judges and law professors appointed by every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to draft proposals for uniform state laws and work for enactment of uniform legislation in their jurisdictions.

Managing Member of the law firm of Jackson & Kelly PLLC, with offices in West Virginia, Colorado, Kentucky and the District of Columbia, Mr. McClaugherty received his LL.B. degree in 1956 from the University of West Virginia School of Law, which in May, 1999 awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Law degree. A former president of the West Virginia Bar Association, he is the recipient of the 1999 Professionalism Award for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Other officers elected at the Conference's 1999 Annual Meeting recently held in Denver, Colorado, are Harvey S. Perlman, Professor, University of Nebraska College of Law, Vice President; Robert A. Stein, executive director of the American Bar Association, Chicago, Illinois, Secretary; and Oglesby H. Young, a partner in the law firm of Lane Powell Spears Lubersky, LLP, Portland, Oregon, Treasurer.

They will serve with President McClaugherty on the NCCUSL Executive Committee, which will be chaired by K. King Burnett, a partner in the firm of Webb, Burnett, Jackson, Cornbrooks, Wilber, Vorhis & Douse, LLP, Salisbury, Maryland. Newly-appointed members of the Executive Committee are: W. Grant Callow, Anchorage, Alaska; Patricia Brumfield Fry, Grand Forks, North Dakota; and Michael B. Getty, Chicago, Illinois. Other Executive Committee members are immediate past president Gene N. Lebrun, Rapid City, South Dakota; Chair of the Committee on Scope and Program, Barry H. Evenchick, Newark, New Jersey; and Legislative Committee Chair Michael Houghton, Wilmington, Delaware.

According to Mr. McClaugherty, priority items on the upcoming NCCUSL agenda include final revisions to the Uniform Commercial Code, the group's signature product, as well as other challenging drafting efforts that include the Uniform Trust Act, timely revisions to the broadly-enacted Uniform Arbitration Act and Uniform Limited Partnership Act - the law in 49 and 51 jurisdictions respectively - and drafts dealing with mediation, athlete agents and interstate domestic violence orders.