Vincent R. Johnson was an aspiring lawyer studying for his undergraduate degree at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, when the Watergate scandal was unfolding.
During the fallout, the country saw disciplinary proceedings brought against more than 20 lawyers for misconduct including aiding and abetting a burglary, obstruction of justice, perjury, violation of campaign laws and other crimes.
“It was embarrassing to be a lawyer at that point in time,” Johnson said.
But there was no doubt in Johnson’s mind that he wanted to be an attorney. Lawyers were at the center of every consequential decision, he thought, and that’s where he wanted to be.
“For the do-gooders who were part of the cleanup of the mess that had been made, they were in the game seriously. They were going to re-examine the legal profession from top to bottom. They were going to make recommendations for what should change. They were going to require the law school courses or the continuing education for lawyers,” said Johnson, who after this spring semester retired from his St. Mary’s University School of Law professor position where he taught, among other topics, torts, professional responsibility, legal malpractice and government ethics.
“Now, 35 or so years down the road, we have a very strong professional organization that shapes and holds accountable lawyers who have done wrong or who have attempted to do wrong,” Johnson said.
Johnson would know. He taught 43 years at St. Mary’s, where he was the Katherine A. Ryan Distinguished Chair for Global and International Law. He has been a visiting professor for various other schools including the University of Notre Dame and George Washington University. He has also been a Fulbright Scholar in China, Romania and Myanmar.
For exceptional ethical behavior in the practice of law and ethical leadership in the community, the San Antonio chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel recently honored Johnson with its prestigious Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life and Leadership Award in the in-house/legal department category.
Each year, the organization presents the award to one in-house lawyer or legal department and one private lawyer or law firm. Christine Reinhard, a labor and employment lawyer and partner at Schmoyer Reinhard, received the award in the private lawyer category.
“Professor Johnson is a national expert in professional responsibility and lawyer ethics, regularly training tomorrow’s attorneys for ethical practice,” said Patricia Roberts, St. Mary’s School of Law dean who nominated Johnson for the award. “There are countless members of the San Antonio and Texas Bars who learned legal ethics from Professor Johnson, wrote scholarship under his tutelage, or explored comparative law across the globe because of his decades of services as a teacher and scholar.”
Johnson knew since he was a child arguing around the family dinner table in Pennsylvania that he would grow up to be a lawyer, despite not having any lawyers in the family or any family experience hiring a lawyer. Johnson was the first of three boys born to a steel mill grinder and a housewife who took a job as a secretary and key punch operator while Johnson was in school.
Publisher’s note: The Texas Lawbook is partnering with ACC San Antonio on an inaugural San Antonio Corporate Counsel Awards program in November. Nominations will open next week. Please email brooks.igo@texaslawbook.net if you are interested in being a sponsor.
“I liked to argue with my younger brother, and I thought, ‘Well gee, if you can make money by arguing, why not do that?’” Johnson said.
Johnson obtained his law degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School, where his commitment to ethics was heavily influenced by former dean Thomas Shaffer, a prolific legal writer who died in 2019. Shaffer’s teaching was “tantalizing,” albeit intensive, Johnson said.
Johnson took a rare eight-credit course under Shaffer in his last semester at Notre Dame, in which he was assigned 50 pages of reading and a writing assignment each day, he said.
“I would have taken any course that he taught,” Johnson said.
Johnson went on to study at Yale Law School’s Master of Laws program. He clerked for judges on the New York Court of Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, and he served as a Supreme Court Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where he assisted Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in duties including speechwriting and hosting visitors to the court.
“That was a great window on the operation of the American legal system,” Johnson said.
Johnson found his place in law teaching and in 1982 he joined the faculty at St. Mary’s.
“I always was interested in how my grade school teachers taught, because from one class to another class, it was different,” he said. “I was interested in what makes the teaching good and effective.”
In 2016, Johnson obtained another Master of Laws with distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Today, Johnson sees changes in the legal profession that will require an overhaul of ethics much like he saw in the early 1970s, when he was just making his way into the industry. The adoption of artificial intelligence and new modes of licensing, for example, will force lawyers to consider new ethical guidelines, he said. Lawyers will need to play “an active and responsible role in ensuring that the needs of the public are well protected,” he said.
“I think it is important for lawyers and the legal profession to play a role that monitors and guides the conduct of government in Washington and in the states throughout the country,” Johnson said. “That lawyers have the strength and knowledge, the willingness and the ability to call down improper conduct or changes to the ethics rules that weaken the ability of lawyers to be effective critics of government.”