A Question Of Law

When a disciplinary hearing committee wonders whether a case should have been brought at all, it likely is not a good omen for disciplinary counsel.

A Louisiana Hearing Committee wondered just that and rejected charges that a suspended lawyer who filed a pleading on behalf of her own LLC engaged in unauthorized practice of law.

The pleading was in answer to a partition suit and avoided a default from being entered.

This also caused the committee concern

The Committee also notes that someone involved with the disciplinary complaint must have advised the St. Tammany Parish Sheriffs Office that Respondent would be in the courthouse for the disciplinary hearing and that the Respondent also had an outstanding warrant for an unrelated matter. The Respondent was arrested following the hearing but the Committee would note that such a tactic brought by whomever, could have resulted in a substantial waste of time not only for the lawyer members of the Committee but for the public member of the Committee who had to drive all the way from Amite, Louisiana had the Sheriffs Office not agreed to allow the hearing to go forward before the arrest was made.

The committee recognized that the Supreme Court might rule to the contrary on the question of law and proposes a reprimand if the court finds the violation. (Mike Frisch)