An open letter to State Bar of Texas

Dear Sir or Ma’am:

It’s been a tough year, but I hope this email finds you staying safe. I’m writing to urge you to give some real thought to whether your rule on the ability to impose an “interim” suspension on a Texas lawyer goes as far as it needs to in order to be able to protect the public.

As I understand it, the current Texas rules provide the following as what is required in order to be able to obtain an immediate interim suspension of an attorney:

PART XIV. INTERIM SUSPENSION

14.01. Irreparable Harm to Clients: Should the Chief Disciplinary Counsel reasonably believe based upon investigation of a Complaint that an attorney poses a substantial threat of irreparable harm to clients or prospective clients and be authorized or directed to do so by the Commission, the Chief Disciplinary Counsel shall seek the immediate interim suspension of the attorney. The Commission shall file a petition with a district court of proper venue alleging substantial threat
of irreparable harm, and the district court shall, if the petition alleges facts that meet the evidentiary standard in Rule 14.02, set a hearing within ten days. If the Commission, at the hearing, meets the evidentiary standard and burden of proof as established in Rule 14.02, the court shall enter an order without requiring bond, immediately suspending the attorney pending the final disposition of the Disciplinary Proceedings or the Disciplinary Action based on the conduct causing the harm. The matter shall thereafter proceed in the district court as in matters involving temporary injunctions under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. If a temporary injunction is entered, the court may appoint a custodian under Part XIII. If, at the conclusion of all Disciplinary Proceedings and Disciplinary Actions, the Respondent is not found to have committed Professional Misconduct, the immediate interim suspension may not be deemed a “Sanction” for purposes of insurance applications or any other purpose.

14.02. Burden of Proof and Evidentiary Standard: The Commission has the burden to prove the case for an interim suspension by a preponderance of the evidence. If proved by a preponderance of the evidence, any one of the following elements establishes conclusively that the attorney poses a substantial threat of irreparable harm to clients or prospective clients:

A. Conduct by an attorney that includes all of the elements of a Serious Crime as defined in these rules.
B. Three or more acts of Professional Misconduct, as defined in subsections (a) (2) (3) (4) (6) (7) (8) or (10) of Rule 8.04 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of
Professional Conduct, whether or not actual harm or threatened harm is
demonstrated.
C. Any other conduct by an attorney that, if continued, will probably cause harm to clients or prospective clients.

Under this rule, your power is limited to issues that pose a threat of harm to clients or prospective clients. Normally, I’d agree that makes a certain amount of sense.

But here in Tennessee, our Board of Professional Responsibility is imbued with a broader power in this regard. Our rule reads as follows:

12.3.  Temporary Suspension. 
      (a) On petition of  Disciplinary Counsel and supported by an affidavit or declaration under penalty of perjury demonstrating facts personally known to affiant showing that an attorney has misappropriated funds to the attorney’s own use, has failed to respond to the Board or Disciplinary Counsel concerning a complaint of misconduct, has failed to substantially comply with a Tennessee Lawyer Assistance Program monitoring agreement requiring mandatory reporting to Disciplinary Counsel pursuant to Section 36.1, or otherwise poses a threat of substantial harm to the public, the Court may issue an order with such notice as the Court may prescribe imposing temporary conditions of probation on said attorney or temporarily suspending said attorney, or both.
     (b) Any order of temporary suspension which restricts the attorney maintaining a trust account shall, when served on any bank maintaining an account against which said attorney may make withdrawals, serve as an injunction to prevent said bank from making further payment from such account or accounts on any obligation except in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Court. 
     (c) Any order of temporary suspension issued under this Rule shall preclude the attorney from accepting any new cases, unless otherwise provided in the order. An order of temporary suspension shall not preclude the attorney from continuing to represent existing clients during the first thirty days after the effective date of the order of temporary suspension, unless otherwise provided in the order; however, any fees tendered to such attorney during such thirty day period shall be deposited in a trust fund from which withdrawals may be made only in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Court.
     (d) The attorney may for good cause request dissolution or amendment of any such order of temporary suspension by filing in the Nashville office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court and serving on Disciplinary Counsel a Petition for Dissolution or Amendment.  Such petition for dissolution shall be set for immediate hearing before the Board or a panel.  The Board or panel shall hear such petition forthwith and file its report and recommendation to the Supreme Court with the utmost speed consistent with due process. There shall be no petition for rehearing.  Upon receipt of the foregoing report, the Court may modify its order if appropriate or continue such provision of the order as may be appropriate until final disposition of all pending disciplinary charges against said attorney.

In terms of the triggering events, the big differences it seems to me are that, in Tennessee, the Disciplinary Counsel does not have to wait on a complaint to act and can act if an attorney “otherwise poses a threat of substantial harm to the public.” Now, I readily admit that this power is one that I have taken issue with when used in Tennessee in some circumstances, but I’m still writing you this letter you will never read to suggest you might want to look into getting something like this power conferred upon you in Texas.

Why?

Well, you’ve got a couple of really big problems on your hands. I know Texas is known for bandying about that “everything is bigger in Texas” line of bragging, but this time it might really be true.

Problem #1 is named Sidney Powell. She’s on something of a crusade to demonstrate over this last month or so just how much of a threat of substantial harm to the public a Texas attorney can pose and not have the threat be directed at clients or potential clients. If you aren’t familiar with what she’s been up to lately, just try Googling her name (or, and I know this will sound silly at first, but you could also try Googling “Kraken”). I’ll give you a few minutes…

See? Between gaslighting thousands of people and scamming them into sending her cash, filing repeated meritless lawsuits, including plaintiffs in those lawsuits that she doesn’t actually represent and who haven’t consented to being included, engaging in rhetoric designed to stir up “militias” and vigilante acts of violence, and (well to be blunt) seeking to undermine democracy in our country itself, if she were a Tennessee lawyer …. I think we’d be at the substantial threat of harm to the public phase of things.

Problem #2 is … well admittedly this is going to be a bit awkward but … Ken Paxton, your current Texas Attorney General. Now, you might already be aware of his having been under a long-time Securities and Exchange Commission investigation (that’s now been dismissed) as well as some related state criminal charges, and you might even have caught the news that he is under FBI investigation for corruption because some of his former subordinates turned him in, but you might not have had a moment yet to hear of the fact that he took it upon himself today, in the name of the State of Texas, to file an original petition with the U.S. Supreme Court against multiple other states (Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan) to seek to have the votes of literally millions of voters in those states thrown out as a way of trying to prevent the President-Elect from taking office.

Yeah, kind of staggering, right?

Technically, he’s at least doing better than Ms. Powell on competence as he’s also filed a bill asking the U.S. Supreme Court for leave to proceed with the Petition, but still … doing better than Ms. Powell on competence is a really low bar.

You can get access to all of the Texas Supreme Court filings here. But, for convenience, here’s the Conclusion paragraph of the petition:

This Court should first administratively stay or temporarily restrain the Defendant States from voting in the electoral college until further order of this Court and then issue a preliminary injunction or stay against their doing so until the conclusion of this case on the merits. Alternatively, the Court should reach the merits, vacate the Defendant States’ elector
certifications from the unconstitutional 2020 election results, and remand to the Defendant States’ legislatures pursuant to 3 U.S.C. § 2 to appoint electors.

So, oh also, many reports are speculating (because of the aforementioned SEC and FBI investigations) that Mr. Paxton is doing this not because of any belief that the claim is anything other than a frivolous one, but to see if he can get one of those pardons the outgoing President is throwing around these days.

Theoretically, your existing rule might get you there with respect to the Attorney General since this kind of buffoonery does threaten his client – the State of Texas — but it sure would be easier if you only had to show that he poses a threat of substantial harm to the public.

Also, the suspension of a state law license wouldn’t be pardonable by the President, so that’d be a bit of a nice bonus too.