Daniel M. Gluck is taking over as state ethics chief Aug. 1, leaving his position as legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii to take on the high-profile job.

The state Ethics Commission announced Friday that it had unanimously selected him as its executive director, replacing Les Kondo, who was appointed state auditor in April.

The ethics post can be a challenging one since it entails making sure that government workers and people in positions of power toe ethical lines. Kondo had sparked controversy for his hard-nosed approach to interpreting the state’s ethics laws.

Gluck, 40, is used to handling hot topics and holding government accountable in his role at the ACLU, where he championed civil rights and fought discrimination. In a phone interview Friday with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Gluck described his style as collaborative.

“I want to focus our efforts on making sure that the Ethics Code is clear so that state employees know what the law is,” he said. “My general approach is that most people want to follow the law, and we should do our best to solve problems as quickly and easily as possible when problems arise.”

Gluck attended Cornell University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He later clerked for a Hawaii Supreme Court justice and a U.S. district judge in Honolulu. Before joining the ACLU staff in 2007, he also worked for Alston Hunt Floyd &Ing.

“We are excited to have Gluck join the commission’s staff as executive director,” commission Chairwoman Susan DeGuzman said Friday. “He possesses stellar academic and professional credentials and has demonstrated the temperament and skills to help fulfill the commission’s mission.”

The executive director oversees enforcement of the state Ethics Code and the Lobbyists Law, and educates state employees on their ethical duties. The code prohibits favoritism, conflicts of interest and gifts intended to influence or reward state workers for their official actions.

The commission also conducts investigations and can levy fines for violations of the code.

“The commission and I recognize that the overwhelming majority of state employees, lobbyists and legislators want to follow the law,” Gluck said. “There will always be a few bad apples, and the commission and I really want to focus our efforts on enforcing our ethics law against those few individuals.”

He said he was honored to be chosen and would work respectfully with all stakeholders.

“I’m really looking forward to working with the Legislature in the upcoming session as well as with other state agencies to try to figure out how we can make our Ethics Code work for everybody,” he said.

“We do think the laws on the books right now are outdated, and so we’re going to be working with the Legislature to try to update the Ethics Code to make sure that it’s clear and that it can accommodate changing times.”

Gluck has taught civil rights seminars at the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law and volunteered to help victims of domestic violence prepare for court cases. At the ACLU he worked on cases that helped homeless children attend school, leveled the playing field for female athletes and upheld prisoners’ rights to marry.

The executive director’s salary, which is set by statute, is $138,935 a year. Since Kondo’s departure, Susan Yoza has been filling in as interim executive director.

Kondo challenged the status quo almost from the get-go. After taking the job in January, he told legislators they could no longer accept free tickets from lobbyists to attend expensive charitable fundraisers. He also cracked down on state employees accepting free golf outings, meals and gifts.

Last year he and the commission set off a firestorm of protest when they advised teachers to stop traveling for free as chaperones to students on out-of-state field trips they organized with tour companies, on the grounds that it could be construed as a reward and a conflict of interest.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association went to court, and Circuit Judge Rhonda Nishimura invalidated the commission’s travel advice last month. She said that because it applied to a broad group — all teachers — rather than just an individual, it was subject to official rule-making, which involves public input.