The University of Alberta Faculty of Law's Dean Paul Paton has been acknowledged as one of the Global Top 1000 in the 2018 International Directory of Global Leaders and Influencers in Legal Business, published by the Association of International Law Firm Networks.
Paton is among a handful of Canadians - and one of only two Albertans - to be recognized. The directory includes lawyers, government officials, academics and others considered leaders in global legal industry matters from around the globe. Paton's leadership has encompassed academic, professional and policy matters. For over a decade, he has been recognized in Canada, the US and the UK as a thought leader on regulation of the legal profession and on the future of legal education.
Paton is entering the final year of his five-year term with the Faculty. Recognition in the Global Top 1000 is the latest in a number of significant acknowledgements and awards he has received during his deanship. He received the Leaders in Diversity Award from the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers Western Canada Chapter in 2016 and a Distinguished Service Award from the Ontario Bar Association for service to the legal profession in 2014. In 2015 he was a finalist for the Canadian Lawyer Top 25 Most Distinguished Lawyers in Canada in the "Influence Beyond Our Borders" category. In 2017, he was nominated for recognition in the CAMH DifferenceMakers Canada 150 Leaders in Mental Health for his support of student-led initiatives for mental health and wellness in law school and the legal profession.
Paton was recruited to UAlberta Law, from Sacramento, California, where he spent six years at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law as professor and director of the Ethics Across the Professions Initiative, and a year as the university's inaugural vice provost. He had previously been an assistant professor at Queen's University, a fellow at Stanford's Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession, and director of an undergraduate program at the University of Toronto. He spent over a decade in practice as a law firm partner, senior political advisor and in-house counsel for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He chaired the Canadian Bar Association's National Ethics and Professional Issues Committee for two years, where he led initiatives on practicing ethically with new technologies and on conflicts of interest guidelines for lawyers.
He achieved national recognition in the United States as reporter for the American Bar Association's Ethics 20/20 Commission between 2010-2012, with responsibility for its work on alternative business structures for the delivery of legal services. In that capacity he was a regular speaker to state bars and legal organizations in the US and the UK, and a media commentator interviewed by the Economist, the ABA Journal, National Public Radio and the Wall Street Journal, as well as various local outlets. He was selected in 2013 as a fellow of the prestigious Aspen Institute Justice and Society Seminar, and as a 2002 fellow of the Salzburg Seminar's Globalization and the Development of Transnational Legal Services.
Paton holds a doctorate and master's in Law from Stanford; an M.Phil in international relations from Cambridge; a B.A. and LL.B./J.D. from the University of Toronto; and a Certificate in Corporate Governance/Director Accreditation from the UCLA Anderson School of Business.