Ohio Notary Update – Wayne Rice, C. Allen Nichols

Wayne Rice Related seminars and products: 1

Bar Counsel

Akron Bar Association

Wayne Rice has been a licensed attorney since 1976.  For a significant portion of his professional career, he served as in-house counsel for several Akron area financial institutions including a community savings bank that he helped organize.  In addition to his duties as legal counsel, his responsibilities included corporate governance and compliance management.

Wayne also has experience as a solo practitioner and with small firms.  His practice was primarily in the areas of business organization, estate planning and probate and trust administration.  For ten years, he was an adjunct professor in the MBA program at Walsh University where he taught business ethics.

Currently, Wayne is Bar Counsel for the Akron Bar Association, where he provides guidance and administrative oversight for the Grievance, Fee Arbitration, Bar Student and Applicants and Unauthorized Practice of Law Committees.  He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Akron School of Law and is admitted to practice in Ohio and before the United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio.

C. Allen Nichols Related seminars and products: 1

Executive Director

Akron Bar Association

C. Allen Nichols possesses a bachelor of science degree in management from the University of Akron, a master of library science degree from Kent State University, and a master of business administration degree from Mississippi State University. Allen has worked for the Akron-Summit County, Rocky River, Cuyahoga County and Wadsworth public libraries. He left library life in 2013 after sixteen years as director of the Wadsworth Public Library and its Foundation to become Executive Director of Akron Bar Association and Akron Bar Foundation. In Spring of 2019 he was additionally named Executive Director of Ohio Notary Services, LLC a jointly-owned venture of the Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Ohio State, and Toledo bar associations. He is also a part-time faculty member at the Kent State University School of Library and Information Science, where he has focused on teaching courses in management and leadership.

He has presented training workshops and programs throughout the country, including the American Bar Association’s Bar Leadership Institute, and published three books with ABCCLIO/Libraries Unlimited. His most recent is part of the “Libraries Unlimited Professional Guides for Young Adult Librarians” series which he co-edits with his wife Mary Anne. Allen has served the bar association and library professions through participation in various statewide and national organizations, including terms as president of the Ohio Library Association, Ohio Metropolitan Bar Association Consortium and Conference of Metropolitan Bar Associations. His previous involvement in the American Library Association has included serving on the Committee on Accreditation through which he has chaired three on-campus accreditation reviews.

Locally, he is a past chairman of the board of directors for Goodwill Industries of Akron and serves on the board of directors for the Downtown Akron Partnership. He is an alumnus of Leadership Medina County, past-president of the Wadsworth Lions Club, and a volunteer and member of the board of directors of Northern Ohio Golf Charities, the volunteer arm of the PGA’s former World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational and the Bridgestone SENIOR PLAYERS Championship. The Wadsworth Chamber of Commerce honored him as the Outstanding Business Leader of the Year in 2002 and awarded him its Community Vision Award in 2004 and again in 2009. The Kent State School of Library and Information Science named him Alumnus of the Year in 2005. In addition, Allen is a former member of the University of Akron’s College of Business Administration Alumni Advisory Board.

A graduate of Akron’s Kenmore High School, Allen is a life-long resident of northeastern Ohio who currently resides in Fairlawn. His wife grew up in Fairlawn and is a senior lecturer at Kent State University. Both are active members of St. Hilary Catholic Church and School; he is the former athletic director and a past-president of the board of education. He is a former Parent Ambassador at Archbishop Hoban High School and chaired the 2015 and 2019 After-Prom Committees. One of his two sons is a freshman at Hillsdale College and the other is a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame pursuing a Ph.D. at Stanford University.