Court Opinion

ID: 9849763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:45:43.411624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:25.803342
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
dissenting.
¶ 1 The court holds today that lawyers have no standing to seek review of non-monetary sanctions. By making unreviewable that courtroom discipline which visits no pecuniary loss, the court gives the trial bench a carte blanche for boundless mid-trial restrictions on a lawyer’s right of audience.1 I cannot accede to a doctrine which puts a premium on loss of money but utterly discounts the grave harm that is inflicted by means of non-peeuniary fetters on a legal practitioner’s courtroom liberty to advocate a client’s cause.
I
BACKGROUND
¶ 2 Funk and Schmidt, attorneys for the defendant in an action, were subjected to mid-trial conduct restrictions after the trial judge had perceived their behavior as viola-tive of certain in limine orders. Funk was precluded from questioning witnesses and participating in closing arguments; Schmidt was initially silenced during his closing argument and then barred from involvement in *550post-trial proceedings. Denied to the two lawyers was not only their right of audience, but also the opportunity to charge the applicable rate for billable time as active courtroom advocates.2 In short, it is my view that a single episode of a significantly curtailed freedom to advocate is enough to confer standing on the adversely affected legal practitioner.
II
THE PECUNIARY-LOSS TEST IS A FLAWED STANDARD FOR . APPELLATE STANDING
¶ 3 A license to practice law, which creates a constitutionally protected property interest3, confers upon its bearer a right of audience before courts sitting within the territory of the admitting jurisdiction. A lawyer’s liberty to advocate his client’s cause before a court represents the core value of the legal license holder’s proprietary interest. Where there is a significant infringement upon an advocate’s courtroom freedom,4 the aggrieved legal practitioner should be accorded standing to appeal even in the absence of attendant pecuniary sanctions.5 Any significant disciplinary in-court restraint clearly (a) impinges on the lawyer’s duty to deliver untrammeled and independent service of forensic representation and (b) harms the practitioner’s standing both with the sanctioning court as well as with the client.
¶4 Reprimands and gag orders can be far more devastating than monetary sanctions. Loss of livelihood and of professional reputation is to be regarded equally as harmful as pecuniary deficit.6 Given the importance of a lawyer’s professional reputation and standing, the right to appeal from a decision that visits discipline should not depend on the form of inflicted sanction.7
¶5 The standard for standing to appeal should be the same as that applied in cases of contempt arising from litigation-related misconduct. If one can by right secure review of a contempt conviction that results in a sentence which neither imposes a fine nor suspends its remittance, one should with equal ease be able to appeal from imposition of non-pecuniary sanctions.8
¶ 6 Today’s pecuniary-loss test also is in discord with the appellate standing standards that govern in nisi prius disqualification of a litigant’s counsel of record. One who is aggrieved by a judicially forced exit of a party’s chosen counsel — be it the lawyer or her client — may appeal without showing any pe*551cuniary loss occasioned by the court’s ban from representation.9 Just as in cases where the right of audience is totally withheld, so too when only some restraint upon its exercise is imposed, the aggrieved party should be accorded standing to seek corrective relief.10
III
THE PREDICTABLE AFTERMATH OF TODAY’S RULING
¶ 7 Today’s ruling will have a far-reaching effect and a disastrous fallout. It leaves no shred of constraint on the exercise of nisi prius discretion to impose non-monetary discipline. The trial judge’s self-generated prudence is now the law’s sole gauge of the sanction’s correctness. Destroying a lawyer’s access to appellate review of non-pecuniary sanctions grants first-instance judges (as well as administrative adjudicators) a veritable license for visiting on forensic advocates unwarranted reprimands, gag orders, and like forms of non-monetary penalty. In short, nisi prius judges (as well as their counterparts in agency decision-making) may now ivith absolute impunity restrain any legal practitioner’s in-trial conduct.
IV
SUMMARY
¶ 8 I cannot join today’s opinion. Its terms are unacceptable to me because they (a) subject the trial bar to an unregulated courthouse judges’ discretion over visiting non-monetary sanctions and (b) abdicate this court’s constitutional responsibility to conere-tize the norms of courtroom etiquette by precedent-setting jurisprudence that will provide guidance for the bench and bar.11 I would declare that the two aggrieved lawyers must be accorded standing to prosecute the present appeal.

. When called to the bar of a court, lawyers in England are said to have a right to appear and be heard on behalf of clients. Their professional competence as forensic practitioners confers upon them what is known as right of audience. See Black's Law Dictionary 151 (6th ed.1990) (definition of "barrister”); see also Mary C. Daly, The Cultural, Ethical, and Legal Challenges in Lawyering for a Global Organization: The Role of the General Counsel, 46 Emory L.J. 1057, 1102 (1997); Karen L.K. Miller, Zip to Nil?: A Comparison of American and English Lawyers' Standards of Professional Conduct, CA32 ALI-ABA 199 (1995). An American lawyer's interest in a granted right of audience is every bit as great as that of a legal practitioner in the United Kingdom. Moreover, the former's license to practice, unlike that of the latter, also is protected by constitutional shields against impermissible government action. See Johnson v. Board of Governors of Registered Dentists, 1996 OK 4 & 19, 913 P.2d 1339, 1345; see also id. at 1350 (Opala, J., concurring).

. The question posed for us by the court’s pronouncement is not whether the sanctioned lawyers were wrongly deprived of their right to be heard. What is decided today is whether they are entitled to review of the judge-imposed discipline, i.e., to learn from a reviewing tribunal whether the trial judge was legally justified in putting them on ice. Today's decision signals that they have no right to an answer.
Even when armed with standing to appeal non-pecuniary courtroom discipline, lawyers face the risk that the appellate court will find the sanction justified. See, e.g., Williams v. United States, 158 F.3d 50, 51 (1st Cir.1998) (Lynch, J., dissenting) (discussing how an appellate court’s affirmance of a sanctions order will give greater force to the administered discipline than it would have had if its terms remained unendorsed on review).

. See Johnson v. Board of Governors of Registered Dentists, 1996 OK 4 ¶ 19, 913 P.2d 1339, 1345; see also id. at 1350 (Opala, J., concurring).

. Counsel’s freedom to advocate on the courtroom floor is not absolute. A lawyer must press his clients’ interest within the "allowable bounds of aggressive advocacy”. See, e.g., Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 75 S.Ct. 11, 99 L.Ed. 11 (1954). "A courtroom is a hallowed place where trials must proceed with dignity and not become occasions for entertainment by the participants, by extraneous persons, by modern mass media, or otherwise.” Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 351, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1065, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (Douglas, J.); see also, Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 91 S.Ct. 499, 27 L.Ed.2d 532 (1971).

. A mere de minimis forensic restraint should not be enough to confer standing.- The constraints placed on the lawyers in this case cannot be dismissed as insignificant and hence de minimis.

. See Johnson v. Board of Governors of Registered Dentists, 1996 OK 41, ¶ 19, ¶22, 913 P.2d 1339, 1345-46.

. See Walker v. City of Mesquite Texas, 129 F.3d 831, 832 (5th Cir. 1997).

. See, e.g., Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 75 S.Ct. 11, 99 L.Ed. 11 (1954).

. See, e.g., Piette v. Bradley & Leseberg, 1996 OK 124, 930 P.2d 183.

. The gag orders in contest here doubtless resulted in a curtailed right of audience for the adversely affected parties’ counsel. Review has been allowed where no pecuniary sanctions were levied but the courthouse doors stood barred to fathers’ (or husbands') defense efforts because they were delinquent in support payments. See, e.g., Carter v. Carter, 1989 OK 153, 783 P.2d 969; Bishop v. Bishop, 1958 OK 16, 321 P.2d 416. Today’s pronouncement imposing the pecuniary-loss standard for appellate standing is plainly inconsistent with the teachings of both Carter and Bishop.

. See Winters By and Through Winters v. City of Oklahoma City, 1987 OK 63, 740 P.2d 724, 728 (Opala, J., dissenting in part); Tweedy v. Oklahoma Bar Ass’n., 1981 OK 12, 624 P.2d 1049, 1052. For an incisive explanation of the critical need for jurisprudential guidance that will assist trial judges in dealing with courtroom misconduct and disruptions, see Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 351, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1065, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (Douglas, J.) and Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 91 S.Ct. 499, 27 L.Ed.2d 532 (1971).