James Michael McCauley

James M. McCauley is the Ethics Counsel for the Virginia State Bar where he has been employed since 1989.  He supervises the bar’s staff counsel serving the Standing Committees on Legal Ethics and the Unauthorized Practice of Law who write the draft advisory opinions for these Standing Committees and provide informal advice via the “ethics hotline” to members of the bar and bench on matters involving legal ethics, lawyer advertising and the unauthorized practice of law. Mr. McCauley frequently lectures and publishes on matters relating to legal ethics and the unauthorized practice of law. He teaches Professional Responsibility at the T.C. Williams School of Law in Richmond, Virginia, and served on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Ethics and Professionalism from 2008-2011. Prior to assuming his duties as Ethics Counsel, Mr. McCauley was an Assistant Bar Counsel for the Virginia State Bar for six years, prosecuting cases of attorney misconduct before the District Committees, Disciplinary Board, and Three-Judge Courts. Before his employment with the Virginia State Bar, Mr. McCauley was in private litigation-focused practice for seven years. Mr. McCauley graduated cum laude from James Madison University in 1978, received his law degree from the T.C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond, in 1982 and was on the University of Richmond Law Review. By appointment by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, Mr. McCauley served on the faculty of the Virginia State Bar’s Mandatory Professionalism Course from 2004-2010. He is also a Fellow of the Virginia Law and the American Bar Foundations. Mr. McCauley also served on the Board of Governors of the Real Property Section of the Virginia State Bar from 2004-2010. In 2013, he was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia to serve on its Special Committee on Criminal Discovery Rules.  In 2014, Mr. McCauley was elected to the Board of Directors for Lawyers Helping Lawyers.  Mr. McCauley is a member of the John Marshall Inn of Court in Richmond, Virginia.