Court Opinion

ID: 9636018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:12:44.82381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:40.538501
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, District Judge
(concurring in the result):
In this case, posing significant and interesting substantive and procedural questions, I find myself in disagreement with each of the differing views expressed by the other members of this three-judge court.
The plaintiffs seek to employ an out-of-state attorney to appear on their behalf pro hac vice in civil litigation in the Connecticut Superior Court. If Connecticut barred all attorneys from appearing in state courts unless they were regular members of the Connecticut bar, the issue would be whether such regular bar membership ' (through examination or otherwise) may constitutionally be made a requirement to defeat the claim of a litigant to employ an attorney duly licensed in another state to represent the litigant in a particular case. But Connecticut has not denied all civil litigants the right to employ out-of-state counsel. On the contrary, Connecticut has adopted a rule specifying the circumstances under which a non-resident attorney who is in good standing in the *178bar of another state may represent a civil litigant in the courts of this state. The issue on the merits in this case is whether Connecticut may constitutionally use the classifying criteria of Rule 15A to distinguish between those nonresident attorneys a civil litigant may employ and those he may not.1
While this case does not require decision as to whether there is a constitutional right to an out-of-state attorney, plaintiffs do assume, and properly so, that there is a right to select counsel of one’s choice free of unconstitutional limitations. I think the existence of that right is unassailable. In his prior decision in this case Judge Clarie ruled that choice of out-of-state counsel was entitled at least to protection against arbitrary denial, and that the “inconsistent non-system” which had prevailed in the absence of an “objective rule” denied equal protection of the laws. Surely there would be no doubt of the substantiality of the question presented if a state permitted the pro hac vice admission of some out-of-state attorneys but denied admission to those who are members of a particular race or religion or who were identifiable by some other characteristic totally unrelated to any legitimate interest the state has in regulating the practice of law.
Thus for me the precise question on the merits is whether the criteria of Rule 15A are sufficiently related to a state’s legitimate interests in regulating the practice of law to pass muster under the equal protection clause. Even on the assumption that the proper test is whether the rule’s criteria are rationally related to the state’s legitimate interests rather than supported by a compelling state interest, Rule 15A poses a substantial question of validity.
Judge Clarie prefers to abstain from deciding that question now for several reasons, including the possibility that a state construction of the rule may avoid the constitutional issue raised. The construction adopted by Judge Tierney in the Superior Court is that pro hac vice admission may be granted only where a long-standing attorney-client relationship predating the litigation has enabled the attorney to acquire a specialized skill or knowledge of the client’s affairs important to the trial, or where the client is unable to secure the services of Connecticut counsel. Judge Clarie suggests that the rule could more appropriately and more literally be read to permit pro hac vice admission upon any showing of “good cause . . . limited to facts or circumstances affecting the personal or financial welfare of the client” rather than upon fulfilling either of the two illustrative grounds which Judge Tierney appears to have made exclusive.
I do not believe either construction of the rule will avoid the constitutional issue. In determining whether the rule establishes criteria rationally related to the state’s legitimate power in regulat*179ing bar admission, we must identify the interest for which the state is entitled to exercise its power. That interest has already been identified by the Supreme Court. “A State can require high standards of qualification, such as good moral character or proficiency in its law, before it admits an applicant to the bar, but any qualification must have a rational connection with the applicant’s fitness or capacity to practice law.” Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, 239, 77 S.Ct. 752, 756, 1 L.Ed.2d 796 (1957).
I doubt that under either construction of the state’s rule the criteria for distinguishing between who is admitted and who is not have a rational connection with the applicant’s fitness or capacity to practice law. While possession of a specialized skill might well be rationally related to an applicant’s fitness, the Connecticut rule recognizes specialized skill only when it is the result of a long-standing attorney-client relationship. The attorney these plaintiffs wish to employ has a recognized skill in a special area of the law — malpractice litigation. Whether that skill was acquired in prior representation of these plaintiffs or other litigants is entirely unrelated to his capacity to practice law.2 Similarly, the litigants’ ability to secure the services of Connecticut counsel is entirely unrelated to the qualifications of the out-of-state attorney they wish to employ. The rule fares no better under the broader reading which makes admission turn on the presence of good cause limited to the welfare of the client. This standard is not a measure of the attorney’s fitness or capacity to practice law. - Of course the client’s welfare is better served if his attorney is well qualified, but the “good cause” test of Rule 15A does not purport to be a basis for determining degree of qualification. There is no dispute here concerning the qualifications of the attorney plaintiffs wish to employ.
I recognize that in addition to assuring high standards of qualification in admitting attorneys, a state is entitled, in regulating the practice of law, to protect other interests such as assuring that the applicant will submit himself to the disciplinary power of the court and will cooperate with the court in the ex-’ peditious handling of litigation. But neither the two grounds of the rule as interpreted by Judge Tierney nor the broader “good cause” reading suggested by Judge Clarie bear any relation to these interests. I therefore see no need to await further state court construction of the rule.
Nor do I agree that either considerations of comity or equity jurisdiction provide a basis for declining now to decide the merits of plaintiffs’ claim. While this suit arises in the middle of state court litigation, it does not present the kind of comity considerations that, ought to persuade a federal court to hesitate before ruling upon the constitutional claim. As Judge Friendly has pointed out, those considerations are applicable when a state court defendant asks a federal court to block an action against him, not when a state court applicant for bar admission seeks federal court aid to eliminate an unconstitutional roadblock created by the state. Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, Inc. v. Wadmond, 299 F.Supp. 117, 122, n. 4 (S.D.N.Y.1969). Comity considerations are equally inapplicable where state ■court litigants seek federal court aid to eliminate what they claim is an unconstitutional roadblock to securing counsel of their choice.
In the absence of unresolved state law issues that might end the controversy, no plaintiff is required to exhaust state judicial remedies when claiming in federal court that his request to obtain the *180services of a qualified professional has been unconstitutionally denied by a state agency with professional licensing responsibility. If the plaintiffs claimed they had been unconstitutionally denied the right to select an out-of-state doctor or architect, decisions of the Supreme Court on other civil rights claims would preclude our requiring exhaustion of state judicial remedies. Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U.S. 249, 92 S.Ct. 407, 30 L.Ed.2d 418 (1971); Houghton v. Shafer, 392 U.S. 639, 88 S.Ct. 2119, 20 L.Ed.2d 1319 (1968); Damico v. California, 389 U.S. 416, 88 S.Ct. 526, 19 L.Ed.2d 647 (1967); McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U.S. 668, 83 S.Ct. 1433, 10 L.Ed.2d 622 (1963); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961). The fact that the state agency which has denied these plaintiffs’ alleged constitutional right happens to be a state trial court is coincidental as far as comity considerations are concerned. We should no more require exhaustion of judicial remedies than if the decision adverse to these plaintiffs had been rendered by a state commission on out-of-state attorneys.
As to the restraints on a court of equity, outlined in Potwora v. Dillon, 386 F.2d 74, 77 (2d Cir. 1967), that decision reckoned only with Monroe and McNeese and not with the later decisions in Damico, Houghton, and Wilwording. The Second Circuit has since come to recognize the force of these later decisions in Rodriguez v. McGinnis, 456 F.2d 79 (2d Cir. 1972), cert. granted sub nom., Oswald v. Rodriguez, 407 U.S. 919, 92 S.Ct. 2459, 32 L.Ed.2d 805 (1972).3 If a prisoner can bring his § 1983 claims here without pursuing state judicial remedies, I see no reason to deny similar opportunity to these plaintiffs.
Since the other two members of this panel are divided, with one favoring abstention and the other dismissal, my preference for reaching the merits of the case now would leave the case without a disposition. In these circumstances, and solely to assemble a majority disposition, I concur in the result reached by Judge Clarie to abstain to afford the Connecticut Supreme Court an opportunity for further consideration of plaintiffs’ claim to employ counsel of their choice.4 While I do not believe such abstention is warranted in view of our obligation to decide constitutional questions properly brought to us, I fully share Judge Clarie’s view that it would be desirable for the state courts to resolve this matter.

. Neither Martin v. Walton, 368 U.S. 25, 82 S.Ct. 1, 7 L.Ed.2d 5 (1961), nor Suffling v. Bondurant, 339 F.Supp. 257 (D.N.M.), aff’d sub nom., Rose v. Bondurant (Chairman Bd. of N. Mex. Bar Examiners), 409 U.S. 1020, 93 S.Ct. 460, 34 L.Ed.2d 312 (1972), casts doubt on the substantiality of this issue. Martin upheld a Kansas requirement that a member of the bar of another state who regularly practices in such other state may practice before the Kansas courts only if he has associated with him as attorney of record a member of the Kansas bar. Plaintiffs do not question Connecticut’s power to impose such a requirement and have in fact complied ' with it. Suffling upheld a New Mexico requirement that applicants for admission to the bar must be state residents for at least six months. The lower court had found this requirement to be a reasonable period for the bar examiners to investigate the morals and character of bar applicants. 339 F.Supp. at 260. In this case Connecticut has not sought to specify any period of state residence to afford opportunity for investigation of the attorney plaintiffs wish to employ. If the criteria of Rule 15A are met, Connecticut is apparently willing to accept the non-resident attorney’s membership in good standing in his home state bar as adequate evidence of his fitness. What remains in issue is the validity of the rule’s criteria.

. The arbitrariness of using- such a factor is evident whether Rule 15A is viewed as distinguishing between the attorneys these plaintiffs may employ and those they may not, ov between civil litigants who may hire this attorney and civil litigants who may not.

. See also Russo v. Central School District No. 1, 469 F.2d 623, n. 5 (2d Cir. 1972) : “Of course exhaustion of state judicial ,, remedies is not a predicate to a federal court’s jurisdiction in a sec. 1983 claim, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961); Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 178 (2d Cir. 1971) (en banc), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1049, 92 S.Ct. 719, 30 L.Ed.2d 740 (1972).”

. The result thus reached is somewhat anamolous in that this Court is abstaining to permit state appellate consideration of plaintiffs’ claim yet is simultaneously enjoining the pending state wrongful death litigation. My preference would be to decide plaintiffs’ claim promptly and thereby avoid the need to delay the state wrongful death action, but if comity is to be invoked to give the Connecticut Supreme Court further opportunity to resolve this problem, it does not seem inappropriate to require the Connecticut Superior Court to wait for the answer.