Hulett H. Askew Elected Chair of the Board of Trustees of the National Conference of Bar Examiners

Hulett H. (Bucky) Askew of Atlanta, Georgia, has been elected chair of the Board of Trustees of the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). NCBE develops the licensing tests used by most states, including Georgia, for admission to the bar. NCBE also conducts background investigations of applicants for admission to the bar and provides educational programming and other services to bar admission authorities.

Askew became the Consultant on Legal Education of the American Bar Association on September 1, 2006, and served in that capacity until August 24, 2012. Prior to that, he was the Director of the Office of Bar Admissions of the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1990 to 2006. He also concurrently served as Executive Director of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism from 1990 to 1996.

From 1983 to 1990, Askew was the Director of the Civil Division of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association in Washington DC. Prior to that, he worked for the Legal Services Corporation in Washington DC from 1976 to 1983 and for the Office of Economic Opportunity Legal Services Division from 1969 to 1976.

Askew is a former member of the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and served for six years on the Section’s Accreditation Committee. He also has been a member of the ABA’s standing committees on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, Professionalism, and Professional Discipline.

Askew was co-chair of the Access to Justice Committee of the State Bar of Georgia from 2002 to 2006. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Lawyers for Equal Justice in Atlanta, a law practice incubator program, and from 1997 to 2006 served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In 1993 President Clinton appointed him to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, on which he served until 2003.

In 2008 Askew received the Lifetime Commitment to Public Service Award from the Emory Law School student-run Public Interest Committee. He was recognized for his service as Consultant on Legal Education of the American Bar Association by the Conference of Chief Justices and the Law Student Division of the ABA in the summer of 2012.

Askew received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Emory University School of Law. He was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1967.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners, founded in 1931, is a not-for-profit corporation that develops licensing tests for bar admission and provides character and fitness investigation services. NCBE also provides testing, research, and educational services to jurisdictions; provides services to bar applicants on behalf of jurisdictions; and acts as a national clearinghouse for information about the bar examination and bar admissions.