ABA Newsroom
H. Thomas Wells Jr.
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
2008 - 2009
H. Thomas Wells Jr., a partner and founding member at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., in Birmingham, Ala., is president of the American Bar Association. Wells began his one-year term as president upon adjournment of the 2008 Annual Meeting in New York.
Wells has a litigation practice with emphasis on complex environmental, toxic tort law and products liability cases.
He has served on numerous committees and in leadership roles in the Alabama State Bar, the Birmingham Bar Association and the American Bar Association.
Wells has served in the ABA's policy-making House of Delegates since 1991 and was chair of the ABA House of Delegates, the second highest elected office in the American Bar Association, from 2002-04. He is a former chair of the ABA Section of Litigation, the largest section in the ABA with more than 75,000 members.
In addition, Wells is co-chair of the ABA’s Special Committee on Disaster Response, which was commissioned after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He also has been a member of the ABA’s Commission on the American Jury and the ABA Commission on the Future of the Legal Profession.
Wells is a frequent speaker and participant in state and national programs dealing with trial and litigation issues.
Wells earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Alabama, where he was president of the Student Government Association and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his law degree, Order of the Coif, from the University of Alabama. He also was a member of the Alabama Law Review and Hugo Black Scholar while in law school.
Wells lives in Birmingham with his wife Jan. The couple’s two children, Lynlee Wells Palmer and H. Thomas “Trey” Wells III, are also lawyers in Birmingham and active ABA members.
Wells is slated to be the ABA’s third president from the state of Alabama. Henry Upson Sims, of Birmingham, was ABA president in 1929-30, and N. Lee Cooper, also a founding member of Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., in Birmingham, was president in 1996-97.
