The Tennessee Supreme Court issued an order last week implementing a helpful change to our rules on pro hac vice admission so that lawyers who are taking advantage of recent rule changes in Tennessee to permit practice pending admission can also be admitted pro hac vice in a lawsuit on behalf of a client. You can read the order here.
The gist of the issue is that effective January 1, 2016, our Court adopted a rule (located at Section 5.01(g) of Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 7) to permit a lawyer licensed elsewhere who has moved to Tennessee and has applied for comity admission to be able to practice in Tennessee for up to 365 days while awaiting action on their application for admission. Until the adoption of this latest order, however, the way our rule on pro hac vice admission (Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 19) was written, someone who was a resident of Tennessee simply could not seek pro hac vice admission in our state courts.
This order fixes that situation for folks operating under practice pending admission by expressly mentioning that rule as an exception to the residency restriction. This change certainly seems like the appropriate thing to do.
The next related questions though might be whether the same rule might need to be further tweaked to permit those in Tennessee who are practicing law as registered in-house counsel under Section 10.01 of Rule 7 or under the new rule as to temporary licenses permitted for spouses of those in military service to seek pro hac vice admission in litigation matters.
My initial instinct was that there might not be a very good argument for treating either of those categories differently than those blessed only by practice pending admission. But with a bit more reflection, the fact that pro hac vice admission by its very nature is supposed to be a short-term, limited repetition event might be enough of a justification for a distinction as to in-house counsel. Practice pending status can only go on for the 365 days whereas an in-house counsel can rely upon a registration license in lieu of a full license for their entire career. As to the military spouse rule, I’m unable to come up with a distinction of note.
(At certain times, world events make it feel a bit silly to write about legal ethics matters. This is one of those times. Like most grown adult human beings, I have strong opinions on a lot of topics, but I try my best not write about things unless I can at least find some plausible way to tie them back to core questions of legal ethics and lawyering. So, in this superfluous paragraph, I will only say that I happen to be the Treasurer of the Tennessee branch of a non-profit organization much in the news of late, and if you believe in the work it does — and particularly if you live in Tennessee — feel free to donate what you can afford.)