The leaders of a committee proposing an overhaul of the State Bar system for investigating and disciplining lawyers complained on Wednesday that they have been bullied by members of their profession who disagree with them.
The State Bar Grievance Review Committee’s proposal would give elected officials more power over the disciplinary process. Critics say they are trying to politicize the licensing agency and shield many misconduct complaints from the public.
The committee leaders weren’t specific about the kinds of bullying they have faced. But they said they sympathized with an experience described Wednesday by Richard Dietz, an associate justice of the state Supreme Court.
Dietz talked about an opinion piece he wrote for the North Carolina State Bar Journal 2021 summer issue recommending a rework of the legal profession’s continuing education system.
After broadly outlining his recommendations—one of which was to allow voluntary pro bono work, or free legal services, to count toward the required hours—Dietz focused on the aftermath.
“I just want you all to know that this was the worst experience—writing that article—that I’ve ever had with the profession and the Bar in my 25 years of practice,” Dietz said. “It sort of stunned me the level of opposition that came out of the preparation of this article.”
The incoming president of the Bar at that time had suggested the piece wouldn’t be published, Dietz said. When it did run, he added, a Bar executive at the time provided a rebuttal—something the justice said he could find no other example of in other journal editions.
Once the article was published, Dietz said, he heard from some who liked his ideas but also many critics. Some of the detractors, he said, were people well connected to the State Bar and the North Carolina Bar Association, a non-government, voluntary organization for lawyers that also provides continuing education courses.
Dietz said he elaborated on his viewpoints with some of his critics and listened to theirs. They found some common ground on the problems but didn’t agree on overhauling the system. “I don’t think I was helping,” Dietz said. “I was just making people upset, and so I disengaged.”
Woody White, co-chair of the committee that has stirred controversy on more than one occasion over the past two years, commiserated with Dietz.
“I was disappointed to hear about how you were treated,” White said. “I can certainly sympathize personally with that in my experience chairing this committee. …It has not been a highlight of my career, sadly, the way that some of our colleagues have treated myself and the co-chair, and some of the news accounts and unfair things that have been said and written.”
After Dietz’s presentation, the committee agreed to recommend that lawmakers review the legal profession’s continuing education requirements, but they gave no specifics for what should change.
The disciplinary system proposal that has gotten so much pushback would give current Republican elected officials most of the power to appoint key players in the Bar’s disciplinary review process. The State Bar currently picks those people. Positions that had been reserved for members of the public who are not lawyers would be eliminated.
Larry Shaheen, the other committee co-chair, said despite the criticism he thought the proposal would make the Bar more accountable to the public. “I said this to Justice Dietz, I’m going to say it again: I don’t like bullies,” Shaheen said.
“But I don’t scare,” he added. “I’m happy to sit across the table from anyone at any time to talk about anything. But I will not be bullied.”