In a long-running case by a lawyer alleging the State Bar’s discipline system “has an unconstitutional blind spot for the plight of Black Male Attorneys,” the Supreme Court yesterday denied a petition for review seeking further discovery but said its order was “without prejudice to additional discovery based on more particularized discovery requests.”
The ruling in Harper on Discipline comes after an early 2021 court remand to the State Bar of a disbarment recommendation so that the Bar’s hearing department could conduct further proceedings “to determine whether the . . . facially neutral disciplinary practices at issue . . . had the effect of discriminating . . . on the basis of race.” (See here.) The remand order also provided for the “reopen[ing] [of] discovery to permit Harper to obtain all data reviewed for purposes of” a 2019 study — commissioned by the Bar itself — about racial and gender disciplinary discrepancies and of a follow-up Bar report.
Yesterday’s order said the new discovery requests could “cover[ ] theories of disparate impact, including but not limited to theories based on the reporting mechanisms regarding, and weight given to prior discipline for, reportable action bank matters in State Bar disciplinary proceedings.”
Harper’s petition for review and reply are here and here. The State Bar’s answer to the petition is here.
Justice Martin Jenkins was recused yesterday, as he was regarding last year’s remand order.
[December 17 update: Gregory Harper is quoted in the Los Angeles Times article by Harriet Ryan and Matt Hamilton, “As Tom Girardi skated, California State Bar went after Black attorneys.”]
