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Key Facts
- National overview: Stephen N. Zack served as the 134th President of the American Bar Association from August 2010 to August 2011, becoming the first Hispanic American to hold that national office.
- State level: Zack was the youngest and first Hispanic-American president of The Florida Bar, and a founding member of the Cuban American Bar Association.
- National overview: His four presidential initiatives focused on access to justice, civic education, Hispanic legal rights and responsibilities, and disaster preparedness, including the Task Force on the Preservation of the Justice System co-chaired by David Boies and Theodore B. Olson.
- State level: He served as General Counsel to Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham and chaired the Florida Ethics Commission.
- National overview: Zack played a key role in the trial of Bush v. Gore, representing former Vice President Al Gore.
- National overview: As of May 2026, he remains a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and a member of its Executive Committee, continuing a distinguished legal career.
- National overview: The disaster preparedness initiative promoted the “Katrina Rule,” a model court rule on legal services after major disasters, which by 2010 had been adopted only in nine states.
- National overview: Zack chaired the ABA House of Delegates from 2004 to 2006 and later led the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative from 2011 to 2015, working in 50 countries.
- State level: He earned both his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Florida.
Last reviewed: May 2026. Legal rules, forms, deadlines, and procedures can change by jurisdiction, agency, and court system.
About This Archived Page
This article restores the original ABA Now officer biography for Stephen N. Zack, which was published on the American Bar Association’s media relations website around 2011–2012. The page served as a resource for reporters and ABA members, providing official biographical and leadership information about the immediate past president. Through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the factual content of that legacy page is preserved here for historical reference. All descriptions of Zack’s ABA roles and initiatives reflect what was known at the time and are presented in past tense.
Stephen N. Zack Early Life and Education
Stephen Neal Zack was born on December 2, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan. He is Cuban-American; his family fled Castro’s communist regime in 1961 when Zack was 14 years old. The family was detained for a time in Cuba before being released and settling in Miami, Florida. That experience of powerlessness during detention motivated Zack to pursue a career in law.
Zack earned his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor from the University of Florida. He was admitted to practice in multiple jurisdictions, including Florida, New York, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Historic Leadership of the American Bar Association
Zack made history as the first Hispanic American to serve as President of the American Bar Association, leading the organization from August 2010 to August 2011. He was elected president-elect by the ABA House of Delegates on August 4, 2009, and his term officially began at the conclusion of the ABA Annual Meeting in August 2010.
Before his presidency, Zack had held several key ABA leadership roles. He chaired the ABA House of Delegates from 2004 to 2006—the second-highest elected office in the association—and served on the ABA Board of Governors from 1992 to 1995. His mentor, Chesterfield Smith, a former ABA president himself, encouraged Zack’s involvement in the organization. Zack was only the fifth Florida Bar member to hold the ABA presidency.
Earlier, Zack had already broken ground at the state level as the youngest and first Hispanic-American president of The Florida Bar. He was also a founding member of the Cuban American Bar Association and later served as president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents.
Key Presidential Initiatives
During his one-year term, Zack promoted four major initiatives:
- Access to justice and the underfunding of the judiciary, highlighted by the creation of the Task Force on the Preservation of the Justice System, co-chaired by prominent attorneys David Boies and Theodore B. Olson.
- Civic education, including the American Bar Academy project to improve civics instruction in schools, with retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as advisor.
- Hispanic legal rights and responsibilities, through a commission chaired by Cesar Alvarez.
- Disaster response and preparedness, which included advocating for wider adoption of the “Katrina Rule.”
The Model Court Rule on Provision of Legal Services Following Determination of Major Disaster (Katrina Rule) was passed by the ABA House of Delegates in early 2007 after Hurricane Katrina. As of 2010, only nine states had adopted the rule: Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. Zack also raised concerns about potential civil liberties issues, such as the suspension of habeas corpus during major disasters.
Legal Career and Notable Representations
Zack built a career as a civil trial lawyer, focusing on products liability, class actions, multidistrict litigation, complex commercial litigation, arbitration, international law, and voting rights. He is Board Certified as a trial lawyer.
One of his most notable representations was serving on the legal team for former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 Bush v. Gore trial during the Florida recount. Zack’s cross-examination of the Votomatic machine designer, which elicited an admission that hanging chads could prevent accurate punch-card counting, was widely reported.
Zack also served as General Counsel to Florida Governor and later U.S. Senator Bob Graham. His civic roles included chairing the Florida Ethics Commission and serving on the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission.
Current Status as of May 2026
According to his firm profile as of May 2026, Stephen N. Zack remains a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. After his ABA presidency, he chaired the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative from 2011 to 2015, working in approximately 50 countries.
Zack has been nominated for several federal appointments: by President Barack Obama as Alternate U.S. Representative to the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly, and by President Joe Biden to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The American Lawyer magazine in August 2019. His law practice continues in Miami.
The original ABA Now page listed Zack as “Immediate Past President 2011-2012,” confirming its creation shortly after his term ended. The content of that page, and the historical information it contained, is what this archive recovery seeks to preserve.
Related ABA Archive Pages
The FirstFile.com archives include other ABA-related historical pages. For example, readers can explore the election of William H. Neukom as ABA president-elect for another leadership story, or learn about Jerome J. Shestack receiving the ABA Medal. Additionally, a speech by Justice Anthony Kennedy at the ABA Annual Meeting is preserved from an earlier era. These materials, like the Zack profile, capture moments in the association’s history.
Sources
- ABA Now officer biography for Stephen N. Zack (Archived)
- Boies Schiller Flexner firm profile for Stephen Zack
- Wikipedia biography of Stephen N. Zack
- ABA Journal: Zack’s inauguration coverage (2010)
- Florida Bar: Zack elected ABA president-elect (2009)
- Florida Bar: Zack to chair ABA House of Delegates (2004)
- ABA Bar Leader: disaster preparedness priority (2010)
- Lawdragon interview with Stephen Zack (2019)
- Super Lawyers profile of Stephen Zack (2012)
