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Short Biography: Leonard H. Bucklin

Trial lawyer, an ethicist, and legal fees analyst expert witness.

Trial Lawyer. Leonard Bucklin is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.  (The Academy was founded in 1954 to be a peer group of 500 top trial lawyers in the United States, from both the plaintiff and defense bar. Fellowship is by invitation only, after a careful vetting process. Bucklin has the distinction that, on being admitted, he became the youngest member of the organization, and has served on its Board and on a number of its special and standing committees.

In 2010, Leonard Bucklin was acknowledged as having been rated "AV" (the highest rating), by lawyers and judges who know him, for thirty five years, under the confidential Martindale-Hubble Rating System. That AV reading continues to this day. That is a mark of confidence that other lawyers have in regard to Bucklin's legal ability and ethical standards. 

Bucklin has been recognized for working with both individual clients and also with Fortune 500 companies as clients, on both sides of the counsel table. He is a member of the Million Dollar Advocate's Forum, an organization limited to plaintiff's attorneys who have won million-dollar verdicts, awards and settlements. However, on the other side of the litigation table, over 30 insurers and national self-insurers have used his services for defense work on cases of substance.

Author.  Leonard Bucklin is the author of over 17 published articles and books. A list of principal works of scholarship is available.  With over 40 years of  actively specializing in litigation, over 30 years managing other lawyers, and over 30 years (since 1975) researching and writing about how lawyers handle litigation in the mid-continent states -- he has a broad background of practical knowledge about how attorneys actually do their legal work.

His legal works include the three volume set Building Trial Notebooks, available at  James Publishing Company. The text is a resource for advice and forms for the management and handling of cases in litigation, from case intake through discovery and motion practice to settlement or trial. One of his latest books is Attorney Fee Awards: a handbook for attorneys.   It is available in either printed or in eBook format at The Booklocker.

His article Woe Unto Those Who Request Consent, is a discussion of ethics and law involved in organ procurement, and advocated a specific set of changes in organ procurement. The article directly lead to changes in the procurement of human organs for transplantation nationwide. First published by the North Dakota Law Review, the article was republished by the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, and is now available as part of its current Resource Guide for Organ Procurement Organizations. A copy of Bucklin's original article was requested by the Social Sciences Research Network and is available in PDF format. 

Legal Fee Expert. Bucklin is an expert on the reasonableness of attorney fees and on legal malpractice.  He is available to either plaintiff or defendant attorneys to present his opinions and testify, or to be a special master for the court.

Ethicist. Until the American Bar Association's Trial and Insurance Practice Section stopped publishing eDicta, an electronic magazine, Bucklin was the editor of the ethics section, titled Neoethics. Leonard Bucklin is an ethicist advising both lawyers and corporate officers.  An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics has come to be trusted by a community, and (importantly) who expresses his/her advice in a way that makes it possible for others to follow that advice in solving a practical problem.  

Bucklin's article More Preaching, Fewer Rules: a practical process for the corporate lawyer's maintenance of corporate ethics, has been part of a new line of thinking that is gaining momentum in corporate ethics engineering. Originally an invited paper presented at a symposium on corporate ethics, at Ohio Northern University's College of Law on 20 Mar. 2009, the paper was requested by the ONU Law Review, and as revised for publication, is available in PDF format.

Among other things, Bucklin (on right in the photo) served for 12 years on the Ethics Committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The member medical  organizations of UNOS elected Bucklin to be a member of the Board of Directors, and the Board elected him to serve for three years on the Executive Committee of the Board. UNOS is the non-profit corporation that oversees hundreds of medical organizations as it operates the government mandated "equitable allocation and distribution of human organs to patients" for transplantation in medical centers across the country. This involves not only overseeing the national gathering and distribution of thousands of human organs in an equitable manner, but also setting standards for, and auditing compliance with those standards for hundreds of medical organizations spread out over the entire United States.  Read about UNOS.

Career. Before focusing on ethics and organizational (law firm and corporate) governance, Bucklin's legal practice for over 40 years was balanced between commercial and personal work, and between office practice and litigation, and between plaintiff and defense work. Bucklin's primary experience is in Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, and Texas, but the nature of his practice has taken him to many states for litigation or interaction with attorneys of various states. Bucklin's career includes, while serving as a partner in Zuger and Bucklin, also serving as general counsel for an insurance company, both trying cases for the company and also supervising attorneys working for the company in 34 states.

Legal Employment: presently owner of the Bucklin Organization. Previously, of counsel to Bucklin & Klemin, P.C., in North Dakota; of counsel to Allison & Huerta in Texas; president of Bucklin Trial Lawyers p.c., a regional law firm for the Midwest upper prairie states; General Counsel for Provident Life Insurance Company, doing business in 34 states; senior partner of Zuger & Bucklin; associate attorney in Larson, Loevinger, Lindquist, Freeman & Fraser (predecessor firm of Lindquist & Venum).

Legal Education and Bar Admissions:  Law School, University of Minnesota (two law degrees: both a B.S. in Law, and also a J.D. with faculty award of Order of the Coif). Thereafter, Bucklin was admitted to the state bars of  Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, and Texas and sundry federal district bars. Bar memberships are maintained in the U.S. District courts of Minnesota, North Dakota, and the Southern and Western Districts of Texas. State court bar memberships are maintained in North Dakota and Texas. He is also admitted to the bars of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Representative Professional Associations and Activities. At the present time Bucklin is a member of three sections of the American Bar Association: the Law Practice Management Section, the Litigation Section (Commercial and Business Litigation Committee and Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee), and the Trial, Tort, and Insurance Practice Section (Trial Techniques Committee). He is a member of the Texas State Bar Association (Litigation Section); the Corpus Christi Bar Association; the State Bar Association of North Dakota (Legal Economics Section); and in Arizona the Maricopa County Bar Association (Litigation Section, and East Valley Bar Association). Bucklin served on the Advisory Committee to the South Central Judicial District of North Dakota (1983-1992) and the Advisory Committee on Trial Procedure to the North Dakota Supreme Court (1977-1992). He presently is a member of the National Association of Legal Fee Analysis (Attorney Fee Practice Group), and he is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Representative Civic Organizations. At various times, not all at the same time or now, the activities of Bucklin have included: have included  Southside Rotary Club of Corpus Christi (Paul Harris Fellow). Rotary Club of Bismarck (President and Director various years). Town Club of Corpus Christi. Ordained Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Bismarck, 1974. Dayspring United Methodist Church of Tempe, AZ. Sky Harbor Airport Interfaith Chaplaincy of  Phoenix, Arizona, where he has served on the Board of Directors).

Honorary Societies and Biographies: Order of the Coif (legal academic honorary). Phi Delta Phi (legal academic fraternity). Delta Sigma Rho (forensics academic honorary).