About Miller-Becker Institute

Mission

The Joseph G. Miller and William C. Becker Center for Professional Responsibility is dedicated to enhancing public trust and confidence in the legal profession and the judicial system by:

• Pursuing programs and academic endeavors to promote access to justice and to enhance ethical awareness and performance of attorneys, judges, law teachers and students;
  
  
• Advocating the enhancement of professionalism of those who practice, adjudicate, teach  and study the law;
  
  
• Reaching out to other professions to identify and pursue areas of common professional interest;  and
  
  
• Examining, reporting on and suggesting improvements in the disciplinary systems for lawyers and judges.

History

Joseph G. Miller founded The University of Akron School of Law’s Joseph G. Miller Center for Professional Responsibility in 1993. The Institute is a nonprofit national center devoted to serving the legal profession and the judiciary.The Institute’s first director was William C. Becker. When Mr. Becker passed away in 2003, Mr. Miller chose to rededicate the Institute as the Joseph G. Miller and William C. Becker Center for Professional Responsibility, in recognition of his friend’s leadership for establishing the Institute’s renown throughout the state in the areas of lawyer and judicial ethics, as well as professional responsibility. The center’s general purposes include: the pursuit of appropriate programs and academic activity to enhance ethical awareness and performance of attorneys, judges, and students; the enhancement of professionalism of those who practice, adjudicate and study the law; and the examination, reporting on, and suggesting of improvements in the grievance and disciplinary procedures of the legal profession. A special endeavor has been its sponsorship of annual seminars for members of grievance committees throughout the state, which examine the processes of grievance intake, evaluation and resolution.Thesewell-regarded programs are presented at no cost to the attendees and have developed statewide attention.