Opinion ID: 2461515
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: open courts under the texas constitution

Text: O'Quinn argues he has standing to assert the constitutional rights of prospective clients because it is difficult or impossible for them to independently raise the issue that their open courts rights have been maligned by the solicitation ban. O'Quinn relies on the following constitutional guarantee: All courts shall be open, and every person for an injury done him, in his lands, goods, person, or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law. Tex. Const. art. I, § 13. Even assuming O'Quinn has standing under the open courts provision, and accepting the premise that unscrupulous insurance adjusters sometimes take advantage of injured persons' lack of knowledge or experience, we find no open courts violation resulting from a ban on lawyer solicitation for pecuniary gain. The disciplinary rules in question did not prohibit O'Quinn from informing injured persons about their legal rights and the prospects of obtaining a monetary recovery, or from recommending that they obtain counsel. Ohralik, 436 U.S. at 458, 98 S.Ct. at 1919. They merely prevented him from accepting employment resulting from in-person solicitation by him or by his agents. We perceive no effective abrogation of victims' rights to bring any well-established common-law cause of action. See Sax v. Votteler, 648 S.W.2d 661, 665-66 (Tex.1983). We hold that the disciplinary rules prohibiting in-person solicitation by lawyers or their agents do not violate Tex. Const. art. I, § 13.