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Oral History of Katherine Mazzaferri
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of The Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Annamaria Steward, and the
interviewee is CEO Emeritus of the D.C. Bar Katherine Mazzaferri. The interview took place on
Wednesday, August 16, 2023. This is the seventh chapter.
MS. STEWARD: Let’s talk about the Bar’s work with the Superior Court and the D.C.
Court of Appeals on the multi-door and appellate advocacy programs.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Very early on when I came to the Bar, I was introduced to Linda
Finkelstein, later Linda Ferren. I don’t recall how we were introduced, but
Judge Gladys Kessler was then a Superior Court judge, and I knew her
from my days at the Women’s Legal Defense Fund. She probably
introduced me to both Linda Finkelstein and Chief Judge Carl Moultrie of
the Superior Court. The Chief Judge, Judge Kessler, and Linda Finkelstein
were an incredibly formidable team, very much engaged in creating a
Multi-door Dispute Resolution Courthouse. The concept was first created
by Frank Sanders, a lawyer at Harvard Law School, who had written about
this.
An ABA special committee on dispute resolution chose three sites
to initiate the multi-door concept, and our very own D.C. Superior Court
was one of them.
When Linda Finkelstein and Judge Kessler approached me about
whether the Bar would play a role, I was very interested. I thought it was a
great opportunity for the Bar. We established a Special Committee on
Alternative Dispute Resolution. Sidney Sachs was the chair, and we
recruited volunteers. We helped the Superior Court with fundraising,
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recruited volunteers and publicized the program. Then later in May of
1987 when Paul Friedman, now senior judge on the U.S. District Court,
was President of the Bar, the Bar participated in the very first of what’s
called “Settlement Week.” The idea was that lawyers performed as
magistrates to hear cases and resolve them. It was a real win-win for the
litigants, for the court, and for the lawyers.
From my perspective, the multi-door concept was an interesting
model for how one can examine a difficult issue and come up with a
creative solution. In this case, the difficult problem was backlog, and the
solution was adding volunteers to the mix to help reduce the backlog,
making the entire system move better and more quickly. It was a model
for me on how to study a tough issue and develop ways of addressing it.
Linda and Judge Kessler published an article in the Catholic University
Law Review called The Evolution of a Multi-Door Courthouse. It
documents the thorough and meticulous work of that Superior Court team
in really making this happen.
Linda Ferren went on to become the Court Executive of the D.C.
Superior Court and later the Circuit Executive of the D.C. Circuit. In her
role as the D.C. Circuit Executive, she facilitated the federal court’s
assistance in a D.C. Bar CLE course on appellate advocacy. At least one
of the judges of that court participated in the training. It was an excellent
opportunity for our members. Of course, after her circuit executive role,
Linda became the first and long-time executive director of the Historical
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Society of the D.C. Circuit. We collaborated over the years on many
projects of mutual bench/bar interest. Everything that Linda touched was
carefully thought through and well-implemented. I was very fortunate to
have her as a colleague for all those years, and she became a lifelong
friend in the balance.
MS. STEWARD: Let’s discuss the Programs Division of the D.C. Bar. Katherine, when you
started as CEO, can you tell us about the programs that were in place at
that time and how they grew?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: There was no formal Programs Division when I came. There were
programs. We had a small CLE program. We had what we called
“Divisions” that later became “Sections” and now “Communities”. We
had a legal ethics hotline, staffed part-time by a lawyer. We had a
voluntary fee arbitration program staffed by a volunteer. Actually, that
was really it. So, the issue for each of those small programs was how to
keep them going. The ethics staff person could be funded by Bar dues
because it was related to ethics and discipline, but the other programs had
to be self-sufficient.
I became Executive Director in June of 1982, and some time in
1983, I realized that the small revolving fund that the D.C. Court of
Appeals had established for the CLE program was about to run out. We
brainstormed about how to fund and run our small, but important, CLE
Program. A CLE committee member who was active at the Georgetown
University Law Center reached out to ask if Georgetown would be willing
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to run the Bar’s CLE Program. Georgetown agreed. Larry Center, who
was the director of that program, brought our three Bar staff people from
our CLE program over to his offices, and they literally ran the program
under Larry’s direction for a number of years. I was extremely grateful to
Georgetown and Larry for being willing to take this on.
MS. STEWARD: The program later transitioned from Georgetown and partnered with the
George Washington University Law School. Can you tell us about that
partnership.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Yes. At the end of the day, we really wanted to be able to run our own
program. Although we were grateful to Georgetown, we wanted to be able
to focus on the specific needs of our members, especially the smaller firms
and solo lawyers. I approached GW, which was my alma mater. Jack
Friedenthal was the Dean. We asked him if he’d be willing to put some
money aside for our CLE Program, and I was thrilled that GW was willing
to step up. GW gave us $50,000, and we used it to figure out how to run
an efficient and effective program that met the specific needs of our
members.
Ultimately, with a very talented staff leader, we succeeded in our
vision. After Cynthia Hill came to the Bar staff as the first Assistant
Executive Director for Programs, she hired Mary Fran Edwards as the
CLE manager. With a very strong CLE Committee, they developed the
tools to run a CLE program that was independent and was able to be selfsupporting. I was very grateful to GW for that money to get us started.
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MS. STEWARD: You’re starting a Programs Division without any money and without any
staff really at that time, so can you talk to us about the very beginning of
that program and how you ended up with an AED for the Programs
Division?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: In 1989 Chuck Ruff was the Bar president. Chuck and I had talked about
the concept of creating a position of Assistant Executive Director for
Programs for the following fiscal year because he could see that it would
be beneficial to have an additional staff leader for these important
programs. He called me on a weekend. I remember I was in the garden,
and I heard the phone ring. I ran to get it, and it was Chuck. He said to me
“Mazzaferri,” as Chuck called me, “I’ve looked at the budget, and I think
we can bring that assistant executive director job to the Bar earlier than we
had thought. What do you think?” Oh my, I was so thrilled, so I said
absolutely.
So that very fiscal year, we began the Programs Division, which
initially consisted of Sections (now Communities), CLE, legal ethics, and
fee arbitration, which later evolved. It was really an extraordinary assist to
have a professional run that Division.
Cynthia was somebody with whom I hadn’t worked previously.
She actually had worked for Maureen Thornton Syracuse, who had
succeeded me at the League of Women Voters Education Fund. Early in
1990, Cynthia had approached me for advice about exploring
opportunities in the D.C. legal community after many years working in the
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national public policy arena. While advising her on other possibilities, I
told her that I didn’t have anything at that point, but I might in the future.
So, after the AED job became available, I reached out to Cynthia and
asked her if she would apply, and she, among others, did. The rest, as they
say, is history. Cynthia is so talented and creative, and she hired a very
strong staff. It really enabled the Programs Division to thrive, succeed and
be amazing.
MS. STEWARD: When you hired Cynthia, the first and only Assistant Executive Director
for Programs during your tenure, what was the CLE Program like at that
point?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: We were just beginning with GW, and she hired Mary Fran Edwards, who
was very talented, as the CLE manager. Before Mary Fran came on board,
CLE committee member Susan Moss, who was at the Department of
Justice Legal Education Institute, helped Cynthia and the staff with the
MCLE accreditation process. The GW seed money helped us, as I say, get
started, but at the end of the day, the staff figured out how to make the
Program self-sufficient going forward.
MS. STEWARD: In addition to the CLE Program, there were several other programs that
were, as you mentioned, in place at the time. Can you talk to us about the
early versions of the Lawyer Assistance Program as well as the Clients’
Security Fund? Let’s start with the Lawyer Assistance Program.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: There wasn’t a staffed program initially. There was a committee of
volunteers who were interested in the nexus between alcoholism and
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discipline, and they wanted to help colleagues who found themselves in
that position.
It took several conversations with our disciplinary system to see if
there was concurrence that there was a relationship between drug abuse
and alcoholism, and discipline. At the end of the day, the disciplinary
system concurred that there was such a relationship. This development in
turn enabled our general counsel to give us an opinion stating that we
could use Bar dues money for the Lawyer Assistance Program.
So, in October of 1985, I hired the first director of that program,
Suzanne Makepeace, who was an amazing woman. She knew her
business, and she was able to put together a very good program that still
exists at the Bar today. I’m very proud of that. It took conversations and an
effort, but I thought it was important for members to have a place where
they could have confidential conversations with a professional to sort out
what they needed and to help them heal and be good lawyers.
MS. STEWARD: One of the key traits of that program is that lawyers volunteered to
participate in the Lawyer Assistance Program and share their stories with
other lawyers.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: They did. We had a committee of volunteers who were very talented. They
were willing to share their stories and talk to other lawyers and to judges
about their situations, and I think it encouraged other lawyers who were in
crisis to come forward. So, for me, it’s a program that’s a win-win for the
member, the profession and the public.
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MS. STEWARD: This is another example of how you created a community within the D.C.
Bar of reaching out to everyone, our most vulnerable lawyers as well as
our small and solo firm practitioners. I bring them up in the context of the
programs that you were able to build that were focused on really helping
those lawyers at that time, but let’s jump to the Clients’ Security Fund.
When you came on, what was going on with the Clients’ Security Fund?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: The Clients’ Security Fund was one of the few programs that we could fund
with Bar dues under the 1980 member referendum. It is an important
program. It reimburses clients who’ve been injured and damaged by lawyers
who are members of our Bar. This program initially wasn’t staffed at all by
the D.C. Bar. It was run by volunteers. I approached the chair of the Clients’
Security Fund and asked him whether he could use some assistance to
organize files, help with meetings, just keep track of all the various details.
He readily agreed. So, I had someone from my staff work part time to help
the Clients’ Security Fund.
We had a very large claim, I believe in the mid 1980’s, of over
$200,000, and the trustees believed it was a claim they had to pay. The
claim involved a lawyer, a bank employee and fraud. The complaining
witness had lost more than $200,000.
Philip Lacovara was our general counsel at that point. Philip
brought a lawsuit against the bank that was involved and was able to
recoup the money, so we were able to reimburse the Bar. However, it was
a wake-up call for all of us that, while the Clients’ Security Fund was
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essential for the Bar to stand up when an attorney had let clients down, we
couldn’t afford to pay many claims of this size.
We asked Marty Minsker, who was an active member of the Bar,
to chair a committee to look at how to address this question. His
committee recommended, and later the Board of Governors adopted a rule
that payments of claims would be capped at $75,000. That way, we could
pay a significant amount if there was a significant harm, but we wouldn’t
put the Bar’s budget in jeopardy.
MS. STEWARD: In addition to that study and the resulting cap, there was another study
about the Clients’ Security Fund. Can you discuss the CSF study
committee chaired by Geoff Klineberg?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Yes. In 2012 there was a report of the second committee, as you say,
chaired by Geoff Klineberg. The challenge at budget time was to try to
figure out how to be sure we had enough money for the Clients’ Security
Fund but also to ensure the Bar’s budget was sound. It was a wonderful
committee that included a legal service provider, a financial expert who
had served on the Board, and a number of lawyers. The committee
recommended kind of a complicated concept that involved a floating
number for the Clients’ Security Fund from $500,000 to $1.2 million with
a target range of $750,000 to $1,000,000 just to be sure that we had
enough money in the fund. The committee recommended that we budget
each year about $250,000. If we needed more funding, we could ask for
more, but if we had enough, we didn’t have to use it all. We wound up
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with a sensible approach to be sure that clients could be well served while
protecting the Bar’s fiscal health.
MS. STEWARD: In addition to these two committees, there was a practice management
advisory service, or at that point, the lawyer practice assistance committee,
which was also there to aid lawyers at that time. Can you talk about that
service?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: That was established in 1995, and it was a program to help lawyers,
primarily small firm and individual lawyers, solo practitioners, learn how
to run their law offices. Lawyers go to law school to learn the law, but this
program helped lawyers learn how to manage their businesses. We
thought it was essential because there were more small firm lawyers than
large firm lawyers with complaints filed in the disciplinary system. We
thought that a lawyer practice assistance program would help mitigate
that, and I think we were right about that.
In addition, in 1995, fee arbitration became mandatory for lawyers
as a result of the work of the Bar’s Disciplinary System Review
Committee. That committee was chaired by Rob Weiner, who was active
in the Bar, and Barry Cohen, who was active in the disciplinary system.
Accepting the recommendation of the committee and the Board of
Governors, the D.C. Court of Appeals approved a rule change to require
that fee arbitration be mandatory for lawyers when requested by their
clients.
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MS. STEWARD: I feel like there’s a theme here throughout your life, and it involves
consumer protection and community. Here through the Clients’ Security
Trust Fund and the fee arbitration service, you’re very focused on
consumer protection of people who have used legal services. I wanted to
highlight that thread throughout your career.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Yes. I felt like it was important for the Bar to look after the public with
pro bono service and with the Clients’ Security Fund and also look after
our lawyers, our most vulnerable lawyers, whether it was primarily small
firm lawyers, but not always. With the Lawyer Assistance Program, there
were large-firm lawyers, government lawyers, and judges who used that
program. I thought it was important to have the Bar create opportunities
for lawyers to be the very best that they could be. We provided services
that kept them out of trouble and helped them be strong. I am proud that I
was able to play an important role in those efforts.
MS. STEWARD: Which also explains the creation of the mandatory course. Can you tell us
about the impetus for that?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: That was an interesting story. We had a special committee look at
whether anything should be done about the fact that overwhelming
numbers of attorneys were being admitted to the D.C. Bar by waiving in
instead of by passing the D.C. bar exam. Because we always studied
things, we studied this issue. The special committee recommended to the
Board that the passing score requirement on the multi-state bar exam
should be raised.
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During the Board’s discussion of the recommendation, someone on
the Board asked whether a higher score on the multi-state bar exam was
what really mattered to us or was it that our new attorneys should know
about our ethics rules and our local rules. What’s really important to us,
was the issue. And the Board concluded that providing new members with
information about our ethics rules and procedures was more important.
There was a lot of excitement about concluding what really
mattered to the Board. So, the Board asked the CLE Committee to develop
a concept for a mandatory course for new admittees, to develop a
curriculum, and to figure out how to administer the course. The CLE
committee submitted a proposal to the Board of Governors, and the Board
recommended that the D.C. Court of Appeals adopt a rule creating the
mandatory course.
The Court of Appeals adopted the rule in February of 1994 to take
effect for all attorneys admitted after July 1, 1994, giving us time to figure
out the details. In May of 1994 the Board of Governors adopted bylaws for
the course and extended the requirements to cover other lawyers; the
Board later amended the bylaws to cover additional categories of lawyers.
From my perspective, it really was a success story about conversations and
thoughtful leadership by Board members, and I felt like the Court agreed
with us.
MS. STEWARD: You also had in addition, or as part of it, a new admittees curriculum
subcommittee within the D.C. Bar. Can you talk about that?
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MS. MAZZAFERRI: Ron Schechter, who was then a member of the CLE Committee, chaired a
subcommittee that overhauled the course curriculum. Then-Chief Judge
Annice Wagner assigned Judges John Terry and John Steadman to be
sounding boards for the subcommittee because the Court was very
invested in achieving success for the course too. One of the conclusions
was that a Court of Appeals judge should be present at all course sessions
to welcome new members, to introduce the course, and to set a tone for the
Court’s expectations of D.C. Bar members. I think the curriculum
overhaul and the judges’ active participation made the course very
successful.
MS. STEWARD: Thank you, Katherine. Do you want to touch on anything else related to
the programs that we’ve discussed so far?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: I think I’m good.
