Suspended For “Derogatory Statements” And “Express[ing] Opinion Of Possible [Judicial] Corruption”

A two-year suspension from the Mississippi Supreme Court was imposed as reciprocal discipline

Thomas is a resident of Texas and is a member of the Mississippi Bar. Brent Coon, the Texas firm that employs Thomas, represented over ten thousand BP-Gulf-oil-spill clients in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana Multi-DistrictLitigation (MDL) 2179 Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon. In advising a client to accept a settlement offer related to the BP-Gulf-oil spill, Thomas made certain derogatory statements and expressed his opinion of possible corruption of the MDL judge and the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC). On February 16, 2018, Thomas was sentenced to a limited two-year suspension in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The court identical discipline appropriate

In imposing the two-year suspension, the Louisiana federal district court explicitly or implicitly considered the nine criteria utilized by this Court to determine an appropriate sanction for attorney misconduct. Thomas acknowledges the truth of the allegations in the formal complaint and requests that this Court consider his limited sanction of a two-year suspension in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, since he was not suspended from practice before all Louisiana state and federal courts. He also references his twenty-seven years of practice with no prior discipline.

Our precedent establishes that the two-year suspension imposed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is an appropriate sanction. This Court hereby suspends Thomas from the practice of law before all Mississippi courts and prohibits Thomas from using his Mississippi license to obtain pro hac vice status in any other court for a period of two years. While this Court would normally impose the suspension from the date of its order, given the limited punishment, we suspend Thomas for the same time period as his suspension from the federal district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Thomas’s two-year suspension will retroactively begin on February 16, 2018, and will end on February 16, 2020. Thomas is required to pay all costs associated with the filing and prosecution of this complaint.

(Mike Frisch)