“Experience hath shewn that even under the best forms (of government)
those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny...”
-Thomas Jefferson
***Might you be interested in seeing our reform proposals regarding the Texas Bar?
***Have you seen how much the Texas Bar's annual budget is, and for what? (Texas Bar budget data.)
***Isn't it remarkable how the attorney voter abstention rate in the Texas Bar's (internet-enabled) annual elections typically hovers around 76%? This report documents it. How is the Texas Bar somehow a source of attorney "self-rule" when the vast majority of its still compulsory membership consistently deems it a waste of time to try to electorally influence that self-enriching & self-serving entity?
***Have you seen how many employees at the State Bar of Texas receive six figure annual salaries? How about how many get paid more than Texas' governor, and Texas' chief justice of the supreme court? (Texas Bar salary data.)
***For information about the federal litigation that might very well disintegrate the Texas Bar, finally separating the Bar's attorney discipline functions from its potentially corrupting trade association activities, please visit here.
PREVIOUSLY:
*Did you know that the State Bar of Texas’ former membership director Kathy Holder somewhat recently pleaded guilty to felony theft for misappropriating around half a million dollars of Bar dues funds? This ongoing embezzlement transpired for nearly a decade before some other Bar leader finally took action. Do you agree with how the Texas Bar subsequently did not disclose this to the state legislature when trying to secure its permission to impose dues increases on the compulsory membership, even after claiming to those members that attorney referendum rights against such increases had already been preserved? Details.
*Here's the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission's page dedicated to the State Bar of Texas:
https://www.sunset.texas.gov/reviews-and-reports/agencies/state-bar-texas
*Here is our Bar reform-oriented submission in response to that commission's Sunset review of the Texas Bar. Questions?
*Did you know that nearly half of U.S. states do not even have mandatory membership "unified" state bar associations?
"While 31 states require lawyers to belong to bar associations in order to practice law, 19 do not...[SOURCE.]"
*Here is a merely semi-accurate list of states with "unified" / "integrated" mandatory membership bars, and those without them.
*There are some potentially interesting comparisons regarding different states' attorney regulation practices & rules here.
*How much does the State Bar of Texas receive in revenues each year? Are you ready for these exorbitant Texas Bar financial reports?
*Why does the Texas Bar charge (increasingly) for advertising reviews, and continuing legal education (CLE)? State bars such as Virginia's do not charge anything at all for the ad reviews, despite charging rather comparable annual bar dues (and for a far smaller member attorney population, giving them far less of an economy of scale). Virginia's mandatory membership state bar also sells comparatively little CLE while the Texas Bar rakes in over $13 million annually for it. By the way, how does it not represent a (corrupting) conflict of interest for the Texas Bar to profit so much from educating about attorney ethics while simultaneously issuing disciplinary rules, interpreting and selectively enforcing them, and even restricting who can offer competing CLE courses and under which circumstances?
*Why not simply let attorney / client relations be controlled by independently existing laws of contract, Deceptive Trade Practices Acts (DTPA) and fiduciary duties? Specific codes of conduct could be selected and embraced, or otherwise excluded as attorneys and clients see fit. At least then perjury laws would apply, and disputants would not have to hear the Texas Bar nervously assert that the Texas Citizens Participation Act's protections don't apply to targeted defendants of its (peculiar) disciplinary proceedings.
Relevant Facebook pages & forums:
**State Bar of Texas Sunset Discussion Group
**Make the State Bar of Texas Relevant
**Hold the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel Accountable / website: OCDC-Revealed.com
*State of Texas Sunset Review Commission (<--state government owned & operated...)
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