Court Opinion

ID: 9755160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:28:28.188187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:03.823698
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Associate Judge
(concurring in the result):
The question of appellee’s standing, by way of a counterclaim, to seek an injunction against appellant’s unauthorized practice of the law is a troublesome one, for it appears that almost universally, in those cases which allow such suits for a permanent injunction, counsel are pursuing class actions in behalf of themselves and other affected members of the legal profession or are joined by a duly recognized bar association or grievance committee. Nevertheless, in New Jersey State Bar Ass’n v. Northern N. J. Mtg. Asso., 22 N.J. 184, 123 A.2d 498, 504 (1956), where it was held that a bar association had standing to enjoin unauthorized practice of the law, but that individual attorneys may have no such standing, the court said:
Attorneys enjoy rights peculiar to themselves, not enjoyed by those outside the profession, but only as an incident to the public welfare. And because of the incidental nature of their right, as individual members of the bar they have no standing to complain in the absence of specific injuries to themselves arising from alleged illegal practice, and no basis for any claim of irreparable damage. . . . [Emphasis supplied.] 1
*601It seems then, on the basis of settled authority, that appellee may not have brought an original suit in equity to enjoin appellant from the unauthorized practice of the law but that he could raise the issue as a defense to a suit against him for collection of a debt, there being at that time a showing of specific injury to himself. Once raised and decided, it is my opinion that in disposing of this issue the trial court was not limited to a dismissal of the complaint, or to holding appellant in contempt, but that it could in these unique circumstances permanently enjoin appellant from the unauthorized practice of the law either sua sponte or at appellee’s request.

. See also Touchy v. Houston Legal Foundation, 432 S.W.2d 690 (Tex.1968).