During the 1990s, Byock helped to launch and assumed leadership roles in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine serving on the Ethics Committee (1990–96), the Board of Directors (1990–96), as organizational secretary (1995), and as president (1997). From 1998 to 2002, he served as founding member and member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Partnership for Caring, which later became the Last Acts Partnership, also funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). During this period, Byock had a faculty appointment at the University of Montana, Practical Ethics Center, as research professor of philosophy.