News Post

Montgomery, Ala., July 19, 2013 – Anthony A. Joseph, a shareholder in the Birmingham law firm of Maynard Cooper & Gale PC, has been chosen president of the 17,300-member Alabama State Bar. Joseph will assume office following the state bar’s annual meeting July 17-20, 2013.

Joseph will focus much of his one-year term in expanding the opportunity for access to justice to those Alabamians without the financial ability to retain legal assistance, addressing policy changes that support quality indigent defense and continuing the Bar’s public initiatives to ensure adequate funding for the courts.

Joseph received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University (1975), his master’s degree from Howard University (1977), his law degree from Cumberland School of Law (1980) and graduated as a Special Agent from the FBI Academy in 1983.

His law practice focuses on white collar criminal defense and general civil litigation. He represents companies and individuals in connection with criminal and regulatory investigations, as well as parallel civil and criminal proceedings.

His professional affiliations include: serving as a past chair of the American Bar Association’s 20,000-member Criminal Justice Section (2008-9); he is a past president, Birmingham Bar Association (2007); former vice president of the Alabama State Bar (2004-5) and a member of the Board of Bar Commissioners (2000-9), the state bar’s decision and policymaking body; former member of the Bar’s Disciplinary Commission (2001-9); lawyer in residence at Cumberland School of Law (2007) and a member of the Magic City Bar Association.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the Alabama Law Institute, and the Birmingham Bar Foundation.

He has lectured on a wide range of criminal defense topics such as: “Responding to the United States in the New Era of Heightened White Collar Enforcement,” “Corporate Crime in America,” “How to Handle a Whistleblower” and “Ethics, Politics and Public Corruption.”

He has also taught at the National Trial Advocacy colleges at the University of Virginia School of Law and the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev., and is a faculty member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ White Collar Criminal Defense College at Stetson School of Law.

Active in the community, Joseph has been elected to serve in various capacities on numerous boards as president or board member, including: Leadership Birmingham (Executive Committee) (2008-present); Leadership Alabama, Birmingham Metropolitan YMCA (2002-present); Big Brothers/Big Sisters (former president); American Red Cross, Homewood City Schools Foundation, and the Advent Episcopal School Board.

The Alabama State Bar is dedicated to promoting the professional responsibility, competence and satisfaction of its members, improving the administration of justice and increasing public understanding and respect for the law.