Tennessee Lawyers Can No Longer Be Reinstated After Disbarment

Tennessee attorneys who are disbarred on July 1 or after no longer have the option of being reinstated after the state’s highest court adopted several changes to one of its rules.

“I think we have to think of this as permanent disbarment,” said Lucian T. Pera, an attorney with Adams & Reese in Memphis whose practice includes legal ethics.

The Tennessee Bar Association, in comments it submitted to the Tennessee Supreme Court, noted that by adopting this change, the state would join a “small number of U.S. jurisdictions with ‘permanent disbarment.’”

Pera noted that the court “gave us no reasons that it was considering this amendment, or for its adoption.”

Prior to the amendments, Tennessee attorneys who were disbarred could apply for reinstatement after five years. All the changes the court adopted are to Rule 9, which covers disciplinary enforcement.

Another change increases the maximum allowable time an attorney can be suspended from five to 10 years.

The Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee supported the changes. “Legal commentary suggests permanent disbarment prevents misleading the public, improves the perception of lawyers, and prevents a danger to the public,” it said in comments it submitted to the court.

The Tennessee and Knoxville Bar Associations opposed the changes. The “rigid disbarment rule would remove room for both reasoned decision-making and an attorney’s incentive for attempting redemption,” the Knoxville Bar Association said.

With regard to the increase in suspension time, the Tennessee Bar Association noted that lawyers who are suspended have to “surmount the burden of proving a right to be reinstated at the end of that period and, if they cannot, can remain suspended for much longer than five years already.”

The changes went into effect on Jan. 23.