James H. Cheek III, a senior partner in the Nashville office of the law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims, was named chair of the ABA Task Force on Corporate Responsibility when it was created in March 2002.
Cheek is a past chair of the ABA Section of Business Law, and a past delegate from that section to the ABA House of Delegates. He formerly chaired the section's Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities, and for several years was a member of the section's Corporate Laws Committee, which reviews and revises the Model Business Corporation Act.
He is a member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, and was its chair from 1989 to 1992. Also, he was chair of the Legal Advisory Board to the National Association of Securities Dealers from 1995 to 1998. He chairs the Annual Securities Regulation Institute (San Diego) and is a member of the advisory board of the Planning Committee of the Northwestern University Ray Garrett Corporate and Securities Law Institute. He is a life member of the American Law Institute and vice chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority. He is a Fellow of the Tennessee Bar Foundation and has served on its board of directors and on the boards of trustees of several schools and charitable foundations.
In his firm, Cheek is chair of the Corporate, Merger and Acquisition and Securities Practice Area. He joined the firm in 1970, and has practiced primarily as a corporate, merger and acquisition, and securities lawyer since then.
He is an adjunct professor of law at Vanderbilt University School of Law, teaching a course in securities and corporate law. He received his law degree from Vanderbilt in 1967, and an LL.M. degree from Harvard University in 1968. He was graduated from Duke University in 1964. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Vanderbilt Law School in 1994. He has been a member of the faculty of law at Jesus College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, teaching a course on advanced company law and corporate securities regulation.
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