The General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section
of the State Bar of Texas
Our section devotes its energies primarily to the interests of lawyers who practice as solos and in small firms. We have been active for more than 40 years. Our section publishes a Digest and co-sponsers an annual Institute for general practitioners as well as other CLE programs. Our section has played a leadership role in several State Bar initiatives. Members of our Council are active on State Bar Committees, Task Forces, and the State Bar Board of Directors. We are active and serious advocates of policies and practices important to small firms, and we report on issues important to all lawyers.
We show up. Join us.
Go to this page, follow the instructions and links and sign up online. Or
download this form from the State Bar and send it in.
The General
Practice Digest
Our 32nd year to cover the essentials of 16 areas of law.
Document
Bank
Give some help; get some help.
Issues
Policies and politics that affect the small firm.
Calendar
Important dates for the section and the Bar.
Council
Members of the Section Council are listed here. Please contact us and let us know your
concerns.
Contacts
e-mail the Chair
e-mail the Webmaster
If you are a member you you may read it online or download a copy. Click the link above or to the right and go to the sign-in page.
The annual General Practice Institute co-sponsored by Baylor Law School and our section is coming up on April 20 at the outstanding (and high-tech) facilities at Baylor Law School. Check out the program here or on our Calendar page.
On April 13, 2012 your State Bar Board accepted and referred to the Supreme Court a report called "Solutions 2012." The task force preparing the report started work after and in response to the Supreme Court's refusal of the Board's recommendation not to implement its "uniform forms" initiative. Read the Solutions Report; it is significantly broader in scope than the issue of the forms.
Remember that this issue started when the Accesss to Justice Commission, an organization funded by your dues, proposed this idea to the Supreme Court. In March 2011, the Supreme Court ordered a Task Force to, among other things, develop forms and an implementation plan. While the Order says the Task Force is supposed to "represent" lawyers, judges, clerks and librarians, the "Stakeholders" in the process are defined to be the "Texas Access to Justice Commission, the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, and legal services providers" -- not lawyers. In July 2011 the Commission proposed a seven-point plan having broad impact on the practice of law.
The Family Law Section, the Family Law Foundation and the GPSolo Council (which presented its resolution to the Board in January), along with numerous thoughtful bar groups and individual lawyers have voiced their strong opposition to the forms initiative, activities of the Commission in connection with the Forms Project and the Commission's and Task Force's lack of responsiveness to the Family Law Section and other elements of the Bar and the recommendation for a long, long overdue review of the Commission's budget by the Bar.
Concerning the last issue, the budget of the Commission as funded by the State Bar tops $644,000.
On April 13, 2012, the State Bar Board approved without discussion its proposed budget for 2012-2013. It is published in the March Bar Journal and we have posted it here. If you have concerns about whether the use of State Bar funds is appropriate, note that your rights are published with each budget as follows:
| The
purpose of the State Bar of Texas is to engage in those activities
enumerated at §81.012 of the State Bar Act. The expenditure of funds by
the State Bar of Texas is limited both as set forth at §81.034 of the
State Bar Act and in Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1
(1990). If any member feels that any actual or proposed expenditure is
not within such purposes of, or limitations on, the State Bar, then
such member may object thereto and seek a refund of a pro rata portion
of his or her dues expended, plus interest, by filing a written
objection with the Executive Director. The objection must be made in
writing, addressed to the Executive Director of the State Bar, RO. Box
12487, Austin 78711, and postmarked not later than NINETY (90) days
after the conclusion of the challenged activity. Upon receipt of a member's objection, the Executive Director shall promptly review such objection together with the allocation of dues monies spent on the challenged activity and, in consultation with the President, shall have the discretion to resolve the objection, including refunding a pro rata portion of the member's dues, plus interest. Refund of a pro rata share of the member's dues shall be for the convenience of the Bar, and shall not be construed as an admission that the challenged activity was or would not have been within the purposes of or limitations on the State Bar. |
... you have a client who owns property within environmental issue. His conduct concerning the property is covered by a “penalty policy” of the TCEQ. Is that penalty policy a rule binding on him?
... your opponent pled two theories of recovery in his petition but only included one of those theories in his response to a request for disclosure. Is he foreclosed from recovering on the secondary?
... your client applies to the local Aquifer Authority for a permit to withdraw water from the aquifer for irrigation. The permit is denied and your client wants to sue the authority for compensation under the takings clause of the Texas Constitution. Should you take the case?
The answers are in the Digest.
For more tips remember to go to our Practice Tips page.
Distribution of our Digest went online in 2005. Since that time we have notified our members of a new publication by email to Section members. We have not had a spam complaint about this until this year. This year a handful of our members have registered spam complaints with their ISP's on account of our notice about the new Digest being ready. Please tell our webmaster before you complain to your ISP, if you do not want notices from us. We'll be glad to take you off the notice list. If you register a spam complaint before you tell the webmaster you jeopordize the right of the other members of the Section to receive notice and you will be removed from the website database.
We have implemented a document bank. If you have a pleading, brief, form or checklist that you would like to share with the other members of the GPSolo Section, post it here.
Need a guide on managing your trust account. You'll find one here.
If you want to restrict public access to your private information, you need to notify the State Bar. The Government Code Section 552.1176 allows us restrict public access to such information as home address, home telephone number, electronic email address, social security number, and date of birth, but you have to notify the Bar. The easy way is to click on this link to the My Bar Page on the State Bar website, enter your bar card and password, click to update your profile, go to the bottom of the page and you will see "Public Access to Your Personal Information" where there is a check box.
Second
Guessing the
Referendum
As
you know, the Texas Supreme
Court authorized a referendum on its desire to change the Rules on
Professional Conduct, and, as you also know, the changes were
dramatically defeated. Wallace Jefferson of the Texas Supreme Court has
now made the following statement on that dramatic defeat:
| The Court is grateful to the many lawyers who contributed their time and wisdom to proposing revisions to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. The current rules are outdated, and must be amended to account for changes in the practice and in the law that have occurred since the bar last adopted comprehensive revisions 21 years ago. We intend to ask the Bar’s Board of Directors to make prompt recommendations about a timeline for future proceedings relating to the rules. In the meantime, the Court will consider what action, if any, may be necessary to carry out its responsibility to maintain standards of professional conduct that protect our justice system and the people it serves. |
You can find the posting here. To help you remember the issues, we have left the red-lined version of the proposed changes online here. An assessment of the failure of referendum by a former Chair of this section can be found here.