Aronson v. Ambrose
| Decision Date | 22 May 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 72-1472.,72-1472. |
| Citation | 479 F.2d 75 |
| Parties | Mark B. ARONSON and Kenneth W. Behrend, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Appellants, v. Daniel W. AMBROSE, Chairman of the District Court of the Virgin Islands Committee of Bar Examiners, et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Mark B. Aronson, Behrend & Aronson, Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellants.
Vincent A. Gamal, Gamal & Rosskopf, Christiansted, St. Croix, V. I., for appellees.
Before MARIS, ROSENN and HUNTER, Circuit Judges.
This case involves the question of the constitutional validity of Rule 56(b)(5) of the Rules of the District Court of the Virgin Islands which requires an applicant for admission to the Virgin Islands bar to allege and prove that if admitted he intends to reside in and to practice law in the Virgin Islands. The validity of Rule 56(b)(4) which requires at least one year's residence before admission to the Virgin Islands bar and of Rule 56(d) which requires applicants for admission of the Virgin Islands bar to take a written examination, are also attacked. The pertinent provisions of Rule 56 are set out in the margin.1
The controversy arises out of the following facts. The plaintiffs, both members of the Pennsylvania bar, filed applications for admission to the bar of the Virgin Islands. They each stated, inter alia, that they were Pennsylvania residents and intended to practice law in the Virgin Islands. The defendants, comprising the Virgin Islands Committee of Bar Examiners, informed each plaintiff by letter that the committee was unable to recommend his admission to the Virgin Islands bar for the reasons that he had not passed the Virgin Islands bar examination, that his application did not allege that he will have resided in the Virgin Islands for at least one year prior to admission to the Virgin Islands bar, and that his application did not state that, if admitted, he intended to continue to reside in the Virgin Islands, in accordance with the requirements of subdivisions (b)(4), (b)(5) and (d) of Rule 56. Thereupon, the plaintiffs, alleging violation of their constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, brought suit2 in the District Court of the Virgin Islands for an injunction to restrain the defendants from enforcing against them these provisions of the rules governing the admission of applicants to the Virgin Islands bar and sought an order from the court directing the committee to certify them for admission to practice law in the Virgin Islands. The case was tried by Chief Judge Christian, who rejected the plaintiffs' contentions and dismissed the complaint, Aronson, et al. v. Ambrose, et al., 1972, 9 V.I. ___. This appeal by the plaintiffs followed.
The plaintiffs' principal contention, and the only one we need consider, is that Rule 56(b)(5) is unconstitutional in requiring an applicant for admission to the Virgin Islands bar to allege and prove that if admitted he intends to reside, as well as practice, in the Virgin Islands. They say that although they intend to practice law in the territory they do not intend to give up their residence or practice in Pennsylvania and that the district court erred in holding that the residence requirement of Rule 56(b)(5) did not deny them equal protection of the laws or invade their constitutional right to engage in interstate travel. In his opinion in the district court Chief Judge Christian discusses this question at length. He there describes the problems of judicial administration which would arise in his court if nonresident attorneys were to be admitted to general practice therein, problems with which he obviously is far more familiar than we can be. We find ourselves completely in accord with the views expressed and conclusions reached in his opinion and need add but a few comments.
The interest of a state or territory in promoting the speedy and efficient administration of justice in its courts by assuring the competence and discipline of its bar is great and the actions of its legislature and courts toward these ends ought not to be interfered with except with the greatest caution and only if the measure in question is clearly constitutionally impermissible. The requirement that a lawyer must reside in the state in order to practice law there is widely recognized as an appropriate measure to promote the state concern for the proper administration of justice and is in force in most jurisdictions.3 As Chief Judge Christian pointed out in his opinion those reasons are applicable to the Virgin Islands. Indeed they are even more compelling in that territory because of its geographic isolation from the continental United States. For as a practical matter the Virgin Islands may be reached from the mainland only by travel on limited and, frequently, congested airlines. The case load of the district court is continually increasing and it would be intolerable if the court were to be compelled to depend, even in part, on lawyers living and practicing law on the mainland more than a thousand miles away to answer urgent motion calls, attend pretrial conferences, meet trial calendars and appear on short notice as court-appointed counsel for criminal defendants.
In Martin v. Walton, 1961, 368 U.S. 25, 82 S.Ct. 1, 7 L.Ed.2d 5, the Supreme Court had before it an appeal from the Supreme Court of Kansas Martin v. Davis, 1960, 187 Kan. 473, 357 P.2d 782 which had upheld a rule of the court requiring an attorney regularly practicing in another state to associate with himself a member of the Kansas bar when practicing in Kansas. The Court dismissed the appeal for want of a substantial federal question, saying:
The appellant was licensed to practice in Missouri and Kansas and was actually a resident of Kansas. He was, nonetheless, required to associate with himself a locally practicing Kansas attorney when appearing in the Kansas courts, because he was regularly practicing law in Missouri, outside the State of Kansas. We think, as the Supreme Court of Virginia said in Application of Titus, 1972, 213 Va. 289, 191 S.E.2d 798, 801:
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Golden v. State Bd. of Law Examiners
...of Maryland and Virginia for taking the bar examination are substantially similar. The Third Circuit in Aronson v. Ambrose, 479 F.2d 75, 77-78 (3d Cir.) (Maris, J.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1162, 94 S.Ct. 153, 38 L.Ed.2d 103 (1973),13 held valid a Virgin Islands rule which required bar appli......
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Matter of Frazier, Misc. No. 873.
...Some decisions have indicated that a court may exclude nonresident attorneys from general admission altogether. See Aronson v. Ambrose, 479 F.2d 75 (3rd Cir.1973); Wilson, 416 F.Supp. at 987; Brown, 359 F.Supp. at 555, 561-62. Yet Local Rule 21.2 requires only that a nonresident attorney ad......
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On Petition for Review of Opinion 475 of Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics
...to declare their intention to be Oregon residents at the time of admission); Aronson v. Ambrose, 366 F.Supp. 37 (DVI 1972), aff'd, 479 F.2d 75 (3rd Cir.), cert. den., 414 U.S. 854, 94 S.Ct. 153, 38 L.Ed.2d 103 (1973) (upholding a rule requiring all Virgin Island attorneys to be domiciled Th......
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Thorstenn v. Barnard
...reasons" justifying the residency requirements for admission to the Virgin Islands bar and noted in general that Aronson v. Ambrose, 479 F.2d 75 (3d Cir.1973), "expressed complete accord with the view that the reasons for excluding nonresidents from the practice of law [in the Virgin Island......