Mark W. Foster consults with law firms on lawyers' ethics and legal malpractice matters, disciplinary cases, bar admissions, unauthorized practice problems, partnership questions, real estate leases, and bank financing. He also counsels law firm managing partners and administrators on ethics compliance programs for law firms, particularly as such programs relate to conflicts of interest, trust accounting, and legal recruiting and hiring.
As co-chair of Zuckerman Spaeder's professional practice group, Mr. Foster has dealt extensively with alliances between law firms and accounting firms, the application of the SEC’s auditor independence rules to lawyers, and with the SEC's rules promulgated under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, both for lawyers and for their clients. Generally, Mr. Foster’s practice focuses on complex commercial transactions, including business formation and dissolution, financing, and related issues. He is also a litigator with substantial civil and criminal jury and non-jury trial experience.
Mr. Foster has been a voting delegate to all of the District of Columbia judicial conferences, as well as eight federal judicial conferences. He has taught at The George Washington University Law School, the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, and for the continuing legal education program of the District of Columbia Bar. His courses include trial technique, conflicts, trust accounting, ethics, and advocacy.
After working for the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia as a staff attorney for three years and as its chief of the Felony Trial division for one year, Mr. Foster practiced civil litigation as an associate in a law firm. He formed Moore & Foster, P.C., in 1976 and was a partner there until the firm merged with Zuckerman Spaeder in 1983.
MEMBERSHIPS
1993 - 1999 - Member, then Vice Chair, Legal Ethics Committee, District of Columbia Bar
1992 - 1999 - Member, Committee to Study Revisions of the Rules of Professional Conduct, District of Columbia Bar
1992 - 1993 - Member, Disciplinary System Review Committee, District of Columbia Bar
1984 - 1988 - Chair, Board on Professional Responsibility, District of Columbia Court of Appeals
1982 - 1983 - Member, then Vice Chair, Board on Professional Responsibility, District of Columbia Court of Appeals
1980 - 1982 - Member, Hearing Committee #6, Board on Professional Responsibility, District of Columbia Court of Appeals