Frazier v. Heebe

Citation107 S.Ct. 2607,482 U.S. 641,96 L.Ed.2d 557
Decision Date19 June 1987
Docket NumberNo. 86-475,86-475
PartiesDavid C. FRAZIER, Petitioner v. Frederick J.R. HEEBE, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, et al
CourtUnited States Supreme Court
Syllabus

Petitioner, an attorney who maintained both his residence and his law office in Mississippi and who was a member of the Mississippi and Louisiana State Bars, was denied admission to the Bar of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana because he neither lived nor had an office in Louisiana, as required by the court's local Rule 21.2. He was also ineligible under the court's Rule 21.3.1, which requires continuous and uninterrupted Louisiana residence or maintenance of a Louisiana law office for continuing eligibility in the bar. He sought a writ of prohibition from the Court of Appeals, alleging that the restrictions in the Rules were unconstitutional on their face and as applied to him. The court remanded the case to the District Court for appropriate proceedings and entry of an appealable judgment. That court upheld Rule 21.2 as constitutional. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: The District Court was not empowered to adopt Rules requiring members of the Louisiana Bar who apply for admission to its bar to live, or maintain an office, in Louisiana. Pp. 645-651.

(a) A district court has discretion to adopt local rules that are necessary to carry out its business, including rules governing admission to its bar. However, this Court may exercise its inherent supervisory power (as it does here) to ensure that local rules are consistent with principles of right and justice. Pp. 645—646.

(b) Rule 21.2's residence requirement is unnecessary and arbitrarily discriminates against out-of-state attorneys who are members of the Louisiana Bar and are willing to pay the necessary fees and dues in order to be admitted to the Eastern District Bar. There is no reason to believe that such attorneys are less competent than resident attorneys. Moreover, other more effective means of ensuring the competence of bar members are available to the district courts, including examination or seminar attendance requirements. Nor does an alleged need for immediate availability of attorneys require a blanket rule that denies all nonresident attorneys admission to a district court bar. As a practical matter, a high percentage of nonresident attorneys willing to take the state bar examination and pay the annual dues will reside in places reasonably convenient to the district court. Moreover, modern communication systems make it possible to minimize the problem of unavailability, and district courts also have alternative means to ensure prompt attendance at important conferences. Pp. 646-649.

(c) The in-state office requirement is similarly unnecessary and irrational. It is not imposed on a lawyer residing in Louisiana whose only office is out-of-state and who is equally as unavailable to the court as a nonresident lawyer with an out-of-state office. Nor does the mere fact that an attorney has an office in Louisiana warrant the assumption that he or she is more competent than an out-of-state member of the state bar. Moreover, any need the court may have to ensure the availability of attorneys does not justify the in-state office requirement. There is no link between residency within a State and proximity to a courthouse. P. 650.

(d) The contention that nonresident lawyers are not totally foreclosed from Eastern District practice because they can appear pro hac vice is unpersuasive. Such alternative does not allow the nonresident attorney to practice on the same terms as a resident member of the bar. In order to appear pro hac vice under the District Court's Rules, a lawyer must associate with a member of the court's bar. Such association imposes a financial and administrative burden on nonresident counsel. Furthermore, "local" counsel may be located much farther from the courthouse than the out-of-state counsel. Pp. 650—651.

788 F.2d 1049, reversed.

BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. REHNQUIST, C.J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which O'CONNOR and SCALIA, JJ., joined, post, p. 651.

Cornish F. Hitchcock, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Curtis R. Boisfontaine, New Orleans, La., for respondents.

Justice BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question for decision is whether a United States District Court may require that applicants for general admission to its bar either reside or maintain an office in the State where that court sits.

I

Petitioner David Frazier is an attorney having both his residence and his law office in Pascagoula, Mississippi. An experienced litigator, he is a member of the Mississippi and Louisiana State Bars, and also of the Bars of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. In April 1982, Frazier applied for admission to the Bar of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. His application was denied because he neither lived nor had an office in Louisiana, as required by the court's local Rule 21.2. In addition, Frazier was ineligible for admission under the court's local Rule 21.3.1, which requires continuous and uninterrupted Louisiana residence or maintenance of a Louisiana law office for continuing eligibility in that bar.

Frazier challenged these District Court Rules by petitioning for a writ of prohibition from the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The petition alleged that the restrictions in Rules 21.2 and 21.3.1 were unconstitutional, on their face and as applied to him. The Court of Appeals did not rule on the petition, but remanded the case to the District Court for the Eastern District for appropriate proceedings and entry of an appealable judgment. All the judges of the Eastern District recused themselves. The matter was assigned to Judge Edwin Hunter, a Senior Judge of the Western District of Louisiana. The District Court held a 1-day bench trial in which two District Court Judges, two Magistrates, and the Clerk of the Eastern District testified in support of the challenged Rules.

Frazier challenged the District Court Rules on several constitutional grounds, primarily under the equal protection requirement of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amend- ment.1 Applying the standard of intermediate scrutiny, the District Court upheld Rule 21.2 as constitutional.2 594 F.Supp. 1173, 1179 (1984).

The District Court found that the Rule serves the important Government objective of the efficient administration of justice. Ibid. It relied on testimony by court officials that proximity to the New Orleans courthouse is important when emergencies arise during proceedings, and that participation by nonresident attorneys complicates the scheduling of routine court matters. Id., at 1183-1184. The court also found that the office requirement is not unduly restrictive and that it increases the availability of an attorney to the court. Finally, it stated the failure to require in-state attorneys to open a local office was reasonable, since such attorneys "must of necessity open an office," and, even absent an office, an in-state attorney is likely to be available. Ibid. Without further explanation, the court declared that the in-state attorney's admission to the bar "does not raise the same concern for the efficient administration of justice that admission of nonresident attorneys does." Ibid. After reviewing petitioner's other claims, the District Court denied Frazier's petition for extraordinary relief and dismissed his suit.

The Court of Appeals affirmed over a dissent. 788 F.2d 1049 (1986). The court found that the discrimination at issue did not warrant heightened scrutiny, and held that the exclusion was rationally related to the District Court's goal of promoting lawyer competence and availability for hearings. It characterized the testimony before the District Court as "of one voice: lawyers admitted pro hac vice, who neither reside nor maintain an office in Louisiana, fail to comply with the local rules and impede the efficient administration of justice more than members of the bar of the Eastern District." Id., at 1054. The court also noted that out-of-state attorneys were not unduly disadvantaged by this restriction, since they could affiliate with Louisiana counsel and appear pro hac vice. Id., at 1054-1055. Finally, the court denied petitioner's alternative request to invalidate these Rules through use of the Court of Appeals' supervisory power over District Courts in that Circuit. The court expressed its reluctance to exercise its supervisory authority because the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council was at that time reviewing the local Rules of the District Courts in the Circuit. Id., at 1055.

We granted certiorari, 479 U.S. 960, 107 S.Ct. 454, 93 L.Ed.2d 401 (1986), and now reverse. Pursuant to our supervisory authority, we hold that the District Court was not empowered to adopt its local Rules to require members of the Louisiana Bar who apply for admission to its bar to live in, or maintain an office in, Louisiana where that court sits. We therefore need not address the constitutional questions presented.

II

We begin our analysis by recognizing that a district court has discretion to adopt local rules that are necessary to carry out the conduct of its business. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1654, 2071; Fed.Rule Civ. Proc. 83. This authority includes the regulation of admissions to its own bar. A district court's discretion in promulgating local rules is not, however, without limits. This Court may exercise its inherent supervisory power to ensure that these local rules are consistent with " 'the principles of right and justice.' " In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544, 554, 88 S.Ct. 1222, 1227, 20...

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