Legal Ethics—The SCOTX Report

23-0045·Other

Pohl v. Cheatham

Texas's civil barratry statute, Government Code § 82.0651(a), does not reach non-Texas clients' claims to void legal-services contracts that were solicited and procured outside Texas: the statute does not clearly apply extraterritorially, and the conduct it focuses on, the solicitation that procured the contract, occurred in Louisiana and Arkansas, so applying it would be impermissibly extraterritorial even though some financing occurred in Texas.
The clients' fiduciary-duty claims against the lawyers are independent of the barratry statute and survive: res judicata from a Louisiana fee proceeding, limitations, and improper joinder did not entitle the lawyers to summary judgment on them.

Read full breakdown

23-0956·Disciplinary Appeal

Lane v. Comm'n for Lawyer Discipline

legal ethics professional liability

Rule of Disciplinary Procedure 17.06(A)'s four-year limitations period applies to reciprocal-discipline proceedings, which are not excepted like compulsory-discipline cases, and it runs from the underlying misconduct, so the Commission for Lawyer Discipline could not discipline a Texas lawyer in 2023 for three emails sent to an Illinois federal magistrate in 2017.
The lawyer did not waive the limit by failing to plead it, because Rule 9.04, governing reciprocal discipline, does not require it to be pleaded, and the Court reversed the Board of Disciplinary Appeals' partially probated suspension and dismissed the proceeding.

Read full breakdown

24-0245·Mandamus

In re Zaidi

legal ethics civil procedure

Defense counsel was properly disqualified because his firm never instructed a legal assistant, who had earlier worked on the same case for plaintiffs' former counsel, to stay off the matter; the employee must be admonished before working on a later-arising conflict, whether or not she was "switching sides" when hired.
The e-filing notifications naming the legal assistant did not conclusively establish that plaintiffs waived their right to seek disqualification, so the Court denied mandamus.

Read full breakdown

24-0452·Petition For Review

Paxton v. Comm'n for Lawyer Discipline

legal ethics governmental immunity

After the Commission for Lawyer Discipline nonsuited its near-identical suit following Webster v. Commission for Lawyer Discipline, the Attorney General's petition became moot, and the Court vacated both the court of appeals' judgment and its opinion, which held the Attorney General is not a "governmental unit" entitled to appeal the denial of a plea to the jurisdiction.
The Court vacated the opinion because the public interest is served by preventing an unreviewable decision on an issue of consequence to a frequent litigant, the State, from having legal effect where the mootness came from the unilateral action of the party that prevailed below.

Read full breakdown

24-0613·Petition For Review

Ruth v. Comm'n for Lawyer Discipline

legal ethics

The disciplinary "no-contact" rule, Rule 4.02(a), does not apply to a lawyer representing himself, because it bars contact only "in representing a client."
The Court reversed a five-year active suspension and rendered judgment for the lawyer, invoking the rule of lenity: a lawyer must have clearer notice before being disciplined for contacting represented parties while pro se.

Read full breakdown

24-1010·Mandamus

In re Marshall

professional liability legal ethics trusts and estates civil procedure

The Court denied mandamus to E. Pierce Marshall, Jr., who sought pretrial relief on attorney immunity after the trial court denied summary judgment in a family trust dispute involving billions of dollars, and Justices Young and Sullivan dissented from the denial.
The dissent said the Court should have taken the case to decide whether attorney immunity protects against suit and not merely liability, so that a trial court's refusal to apply it can be reviewed by mandamus before trial.

Read full breakdown

25-0057·Mandamus

In re Hunter

professional liability legal ethics trusts and estates civil procedure

The Court denied mandamus to attorney Edwin K. Hunter, who sought pretrial relief on attorney immunity after the trial court denied him summary judgment on claims that he aided and abetted a breach of fiduciary duty by Elaine Marshall, and Justices Young and Sullivan dissented from the denial.
The dissent called Hunter a clean vehicle to decide whether attorney immunity is immunity from suit and whether mandamus is available, because Preston Marshall lost the attorney-client relationship issue in a separate case that appears to have preclusive effect.

Read full breakdown

25-0288·Certified Question

Umphress v. Gary L. Steel

legal ethics federal constitution

Answering a certified question from the Fifth Circuit, the Court held that Canon 4A(1) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct does not prohibit judges from publicly declining, for sincerely held religious reasons, to perform same-sex weddings while performing opposite-sex weddings.
The answer rests on an October 24, 2025 order adding a comment to Canon 4 that says refraining from performing a wedding based on a sincerely held religious belief is not a violation; a later motion for clarification, treated as rehearing, was denied.

Read full breakdown

25-0474·Petition For Review

In re A.B.

family law legal ethics

Justice Young (joined by Justices Sullivan and Hawkins) concurred in denying a mother's petition for review because her appointed counsel's petition both argued ineffective assistance and stated that appellate counsel saw no non-frivolous issues, an Anders-style concession that the State seized on and counsel never answered.
He noted counsel ignored the Court's February 27, 2026 order to clarify whether he was proceeding under Anders, and said counsel's conduct raises the possibility of professional discipline, though the loss of the mother's parental rights should "haunt" him more.

Read full breakdown

25-0939·Petition For Review

Ellis v. Prince

civil procedure family law legal ethics

Whether Family Code section 151.001(a)(7), which gives a parent "the right to represent the child in legal action," allows a non-lawyer parent to file and prosecute a personal-injury suit on behalf of a minor child pro se, or whether doing so is the unauthorized practice of law under Government Code section 81.102.
Whether Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 44 (next friend) authorizes a non-lawyer parent to appear pro se for the child, and whether the trial court properly struck the pleadings and dismissed the suit under Rule 12.

Read full breakdown

25-1068·Petition For Review

Lohmann v. EWC Franchise, LLC

civil procedure legal ethics

Whether a court of appeals that reverses a default judgment against some co-defendants for defective service must reverse it as to every defendant (including one that was properly served), or may affirm in part under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 44.1(b) where the judgment is separable.
Whether a limited liability company "appears," and so is entitled to notice of the default-judgment hearing, when its non-lawyer member attends a hearing and acts for it with the trial court's apparent acquiescence.

Read full breakdown

25-1108·Petition For Review

Tex. Law Shield, LLC v. Perez

legal ethics civil procedure

Does civil barratry under Government Code section 82.0651 turn on what the soliciting lawyer or advertiser knew or should have known about the audience's need for legal services, or on whether the people addressed actually had an existing or imminent legal need?
Does a safety training that precedes a legal-services sales pitch count as a "particular occurrence or event" under Penal Code section 38.01, and do attendees with no shown need for the services have standing to recover statutory damages?

Read full breakdown