By TODD STACY and MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News
The Alabama State Bar is hiring an interim executive director after its previous leader resigned amid an ethics probe.
Last October, the association announced in an email to its members that Phillip McCallum had resigned as executive director after three years on the job. The message did not include the reasons why and cordially thanked McCallum for his service.
According to multiple sources, McCallum was the subject of 17 allegations of violating the state’s Ethics Code. Though the specifics of the allegations are not public, sources indicated they were mostly minor in nature, which led McCallum to accepting a deal to resign rather than face prosecution.
Alabama Ethics Commission Executive Director Tom Albritton confirmed to Alabama Daily News that the commission approved several administrative resolutions of complaints against McCallum at its December meeting. The resolutions and complaints were referred to the Alabama Attorney General for approval. Details of the resolutions were not available.
Former Montgomery County District Attorney Ellen Brooks is expected to be interim executive director of the Alabama State Bar.
Brooks and the bar have a proposed six-month contract, according to the agenda of the Legislative Contract Review Committee, which meets today. The contract starts Monday and runs through July 2 and is worth $115,500.
The state bar is advertising the executive director job on its website. The bar is the regulatory authority for the legal profession in Alabama and has more than 18,000 attorney members and about 35 employees, according to the site.