Richard E. Carter

Richard E. Carter

Richard E. Carter, a pioneer and leader for more than 40 years in the field of continuing education for lawyers, both nationally and internationally, died at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 27 at the age of 78.

Mr. Carter came to Philadelphia in 1993 to serve as Executive Director of the American Law Institute-American Bar Association Committee on Continuing Professional Education (ALI-ABA, now ALI-CLE), a major national provider of continuing legal education. In the words of the current American Law Institute President, Roberta Ramo, Mr. Carter "led ALI-ABA during a time of expansion, when the number of its courses and other offerings increased significantly." He produced audio tapes and increased video-conferencing, as well as the use of computers for training at home and in the office. Prior to his arrival at ALI-ABA, he was Director for eight years of the American Bar Association's Chicago-based Division for Professional Education.

Previously, in 1978, Mr. Carter had joined the United States Department of Justice, and the following year he was appointed the first Director of the Attorney General's Advocacy Institute, which he was responsible for reorganizing and expanding. In 1980 the Advocacy Institute was combined with the Justice Department's Legal Education Institute, which provided for the continuing education of lawyers and paralegals in all departments and agencies of the federal government. For the next five years Mr. Carter served as Director of this newly designated Office of Legal Education. He then left that post to assume his position with the American Bar Association.

A native of Indianapolis, Indiana son of Mr. Edward L. Carter and Dorothy M. Eitel Carter, Mr. Carter graduated from Butler University in 1958, where he was president of Kappa Sigma fraternity and a life member of the Blue Key and the National Honor Society, and the winning debate team. At Manual High School in 1954 he was senior class president. In 1961, immediately after Mr. Carter graduated from Indiana University's Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, he attended the Université Internationale des Sciences Comparées for law in Luxembourg before returning to the IU Law School to teach for two years as a Krannert Fellow. Years later, he continued his education at Harvard Graduate School of Education's Institute for Management of Lifelong Education (1990 Session).

In 1963 he moved to Washington D.C., where he first served as a litigation attorney at the Federal Trade Commission and later joined Neighborhood Legal Services as a staff attorney, eventually becoming that organization's Acting Executive Director.

In 1970 Mr. Carter joined the law faculty of the Catholic University of America, where he not only taught conventional legal courses but also created and established a pioneering clinical legal education program serving Washington's inner city. A year later the Catholic University law school started, under his direction, a national program to provide continuing legal education for some 3,000 legal services lawyers whose work was funded by the federal Office of Equal Opportunity. After having served as a member of the transition team that organized the new Legal Services Corporation in 1975, Mr. Carter spent the next two years as Director of LSC's Office of Program Support, which was responsible for training the staffs of legal services offices throughout the country. His broad and diverse national experience in legal training subsequently made him a highly effective manager of the Justice Department's greatly expanded oversight of continuing legal education within the federal government.

For his personal achievement and dedication to the highest standards of his profession, Mr. Carter was elected in 1997 to the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows at the Indiana University School of Law. In 2001 he became a life member of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. Following his retirement from ALI-ABA in 2005, he became active in the International Bar Association, chairing the Legal Education Committee and becoming a member of the Council of the Section on General Practice. He was also an elected shareholder of the Library Company of Philadelphia and a member of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

Mr. Carter was a member of the IU and IU Law Alumni Associations, Butler University's President's Club, the Old Master's Society of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago and the Evanston, Illinois Historical Societies, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Architectural Society of the Art Institute, the Mental Health Association of Evanston, the University Club of the University of Pennsylvania, the Alexandria Association in Virginia, and many others. He was a member of various boards of community self-help organizations in Washington D.C., including the Client's Council which honored him. He also belonged to the Association of Continuing Legal Education Administrators (ACLEA).

Mr. Carter is survived by his wife of 47 years, Constance Crowder Carter; by a brother, David of Indianapolis, and by a niece, Cathy Carter, and nephews Michael, and D. Craig Carter.

Interment will be private. A memorial service will be held at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia located at 219 S. 6th Street (Philadelphia, PA 19106) on Friday, May 16, 2014 from 4 pm to 6 pm. Contributions in lieu of flowers may be sent to the charity or institution of your choice.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Stuard Funeral Directors, Inc.