Every plaintiff seeks the best forum for its case, but there are proper and improper ways of pursuing that goal. Here’s a stark reminder to lawyers who are passionate about their cause, whatever that cause might be, that their passion shouldn’t lead them to play fast and loose with their ethical obligations.
In October 2023, a three-judge panel issued its final report on improper judge-shopping by plaintiffs’ lawyers in several cases in which they challenged an Alabama law that bars providing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors as treatment for gender dysphoria. The report determined that eleven lawyers committed various acts of “misconduct” as they “intentionally attempted to direct their cases to a judge they considered favorable and, in particular, to avoid Judge [Liles C.] Burke.” (Ironically, Burke ruled for the plaintiffs, but the Eleventh Circuit soundly reversed him.)
Yesterday Judge Burke issued a 230-page order imposing sanctions on Carl Charles (Lambda Legal) and two other attorneys, Melody Eagan and Jeffrey Doss, both with the Birmingham law firm Lightfoot, Franklin & White.
Burke reprimands Charles “for his repeated, intentional, bad-faith misrepresentations of key facts to the three-judge panel about his call to Judge [Myron] Thompson’s chambers,” fines him $5,000, and refers the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s office for possible criminal prosecution and to Charles’s bar organizations for possible disciplinary measures.
Burke reprimands Eagan and Doss “for their intentional, bad-faith attempts to manipulate the random case assignment procedures for the Northern and Middle Districts of Alabama,” disqualifies them for further participation in the case, and refers their professional misconduct to the Alabama state bar.
While I’m at it: Far beyond these disciplinary measures, the challenge that plaintiffs brought to Alabama’s law has been a marvelous folly. Discovery conducted by Alabama in that case has exposed the “medical, legal, and political scandal” of the treatment guidelines issued by WPATH (the World Professional Association of Transgender Health). It is these shoddy guidelines that then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar invoked in claiming absurdly in the pending case of United States v. Skrmetti that “overwhelming evidence” supports transgender medical interventions on minors.