Lucian T. Pera is a member of the Litigation Practice Group.  He practices primarily in the civil trial arena, including a wide variety of commercial, media, intellectual property, and personal injury litigation.  He also has a growing practice counseling and representing lawyers, law firms, and others on questions of legal ethics and the professional responsibility of lawyers.

Mr. Pera has represented a number of major media outlets in significant litigation concerning public and media access to public records, open meetings, and court proceedings. These cases include a 2002 landmark Tennessee Supreme Court decision granting public and media access to the records of a troubled nonprofit government contractor administering tens of millions of dollars in public money in assistance to low-income mothers.  As an active member of the Media Law Resource Center’s Defense Counsel Section, he serves as chair of its ethics committee and as author of two Tennessee chapters in its national surveys of media law.  He speaks and writes on media law issues, both in Tennessee and nationally.

Mr. Pera also counsels and represents lawyers, large and small law firms, law departments, clients of lawyers, and others on lawyer ethics, professional responsibility, malpractice, and loss prevention.  His recent assignments have ranged from advice on conflicts of interest or legal advertising, to opinions on lawyer business transactions, to representation in disciplinary and bar admission proceedings, to defense and prosecution of lawyer disqualification motions, to addressing malpractice and loss prevention issues, to expert witness assignments.  He has developed a nationwide practice and reputation in this emerging field, and writes frequently on such matters. In addition, he routinely conducts presentations and seminars for national audiences. 

For five years, Mr. Pera served as a member of the American Bar Association’s Special Commission on the Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct (also called “Ethics 2000”), which proposed significant changes approved in 2002 by the ABA.  These changes in the ethics rules have been, or are currently being, considered for adoption in almost every American jurisdiction and have been very positively received.  In fact, Mr. Pera has published the only comprehensive article on these adoptions. He has chaired the ABA Section of Business Law’s Committee on Professional Conduct, has chaired and now serves on the editorial board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Responsibility, and served as chair of the Tennessee Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility from 2000-2009, spearheading Tennessee’s adoption of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct.  He currently serves as Secretary of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and as a member of the Advisory Board for the Miller-Becker Institute for Professional Responsibility of the University of Akron.  

Mr. Pera has served in other positions of leadership in the profession.  Since 1990, with only a three-year break, he has served as a member of the ABA House of Delegates, its policy-making body, and he currently chairs the ABA’s Standing Committee on Technology and Information Systems.  From 1994-1997, he served as one of two Young Lawyer Members-at-Large of the ABA Board of Governors and, during his final year on the Board, he became the only young lawyer ever to chair its Finance Committee, placing him also on the ABA Executive Committee.  He has served as the Tennessee Bar Association as its Secretary, a member of its Board of Governors, and as President of its Young Lawyers Division.

A Memphis native, Mr. Pera graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1982, and obtained his law degree in 1985 from Vanderbilt University School of Law.  He served as a law clerk to Judge Harry W. Wellford of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Pera is a member of the American Law Institute and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America (Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law, First Amendment Law, Health Care Law, Legal Malpractice Law), Chambers USA Directory as a Leader in the field of Litigation: General Commercial, and Mid-South Super Lawyers as one of the top 100 lawyers in Tennessee in Business Litigation. Mr. Pera was selected by BusinessTN magazine as one of the "2010 Best 150 Lawyers in Tennessee", out of the 18,000 active lawyers in the state.  This is a peer review, editorially selected list of the top 150 professionals working in the legal field in Tennessee.