Court Opinion

ID: 9679821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:09:33.288871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:21.482630
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING George Rose Smith, J., on rehearing. Two principal points are made in the various briefs filed in support of the request for a rehearing. First, it is said that a bar association is a labor union and that therefore an integrated bar would be a closed shop, in violation of Amendment 34 to the constitution. This argument is wholly without merit. Labor unions are organized primarily for the purpose of bargaining with management in the matter of wages, hours of employment, working conditions, etc. A professional organization such as a a bar association does not represent its members in these matters and bargains with no one. It is obviously not a labor union. Second, it is said that most of the members of the bar are opposed to integration. This, if true, is a valid argument, for our opinion of April 27 was occasioned by the fact that far more than half of our active attorneys were urging us to integrate the bar. As we then said: “In a matter that is of more direct concern to the bar than to the bench we are naturally inclined to give effect to the wishes of a clear-cut majority of our practitioners.” After the announcement of our first opinion the Arkansas Bar Association, which had sponsored and circulated the petition for integration, adopted at its annual meeting a resolution which in effect requests us to reject its petition. More than half of the sixty-three lawyers whose names appear on the principal brief on rehearing had signed the petition for integration. Acting upon the assumption that such complete changes of position were not lightly decided upon, we directed our clerk .again to submit the question to all licensed attorneys. In this poll the vote was 489 for integration and I, 003 against it, confirming the stand now taken by the Bar Association. We reaffirm the principles approved in our original opinion, and in accordance therewith we again give effect to the view that prevails among a decided majority of our attorneys. The petition for rehearing is granted, and the petition for integration is denied. Griffin Smith, C. J., and McFaddin and Millwee, JJ., concur.