Center for Governmental Responsibility Conference honors Stephen Zack

June 1, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Stephen N. Zack of Miami received the 2010 Jon Mills Award for Significant Contributions to Relations between Florida and the Americas during the Center for Governmental Responsibility’s (CGR) 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas, held May 17-18 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The conference is jointly sponsored by CGR and the University of Florida’s Law and Policy in the Americas Program, both housed at UF’s Levin College of Law.

“We are honored to recognize the contributions of Steve Zack, a graduate of the University of Florida, as he has helped spread the rule of law throughout the hemisphere. He has represented UF with distinction and is well respected in the Americas,” said Jon Mills, UF law professor, dean emeritus and CGR director.

Zack is president-elect of the American Bar Association and recently was named 2010 University of Florida Distinguished Alumnus. He also was selected by the University Of Florida Association of Hispanic Alumni as Gran Caimán of the Year. A 1971 graduate of the University of Florida College of Law, he is an administrative partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in Miami, Florida.

When he becomes the ABA president in August, he will be the first Hispanic-American president in the ABA’s 130-year history, leading 410,000 members.

Zack’s leadership in the legal community of Florida and the nation is well known, including his participation in the Cuban-American Bar Association, where he is a founding member, and the Hispanic National Bar Association. He was the youngest and first Hispanic-American president of The Florida Bar. Zack served as general counsel to Florida Governor Lawton Chiles, chaired Florida’s Ethic Commission and has received numerous awards including recognition as one of the 100 Top Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business Magazine. Zack also represented Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, following the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

He has been a key supporter of the annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas, including serving as the keynote speaker at the annual conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2008.

Previous winners of the Mills award include Raul E. Valdes-Fauli, Miami, Florida; Kenneth H. (Buddy) MacKay, Jr., Ocala, Florida; Alejandro Ogarrio, Mexico City, Mexico; Paulo Roberto Pereira de Souza, Maringá, Brazil; Michael Wallace Gordon, Gainesville, Florida; María Luisa Beltranena, Guatemala City, Guatemala; Jorge Santistevan de Noriega, Lima, Peru; Elizabeth Lowe & Terry McCoy, Gainesville, Florida; Daniela Trejos Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Peter J. Messitte, Greenbelt, Maryland.