Mississippi State Bar, Matter of, 844

• Decision Date: 09 August 1978
• Docket Number: No. 844,844
• Citation: 361 So.2d 503
• Parties: In the Matter of (1) a Special Annual Assessment of Attorneys Admitted to this Court, (2) a Miscellaneous Docket Fee, (3) the Award of Costs and Expenses, (4) Imposition of an Investigative Fee and (5) Collection Thereof for Operation of Disciplinary Procedures and Agencies, MISSISSIPPI STATE BAR, Petitioner. Misc.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 503

361 So.2d 503

In the Matter of (1) a Special Annual Assessment of Attorneys Admitted to this Court, (2) a Miscellaneous Docket Fee, (3) the Award of Costs and Expenses, (4) Imposition of an Investigative Fee and (5) Collection Thereof for Operation of Disciplinary Procedures and Agencies MISSISSIPPI STATE BAR, Petitioner.

Misc. No. 844.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Aug. 9, 1978.

Elzy J. Smith, Jr., Clarksdale, President of the Mississippi State Bar Ass'n, on behalf of the Mississippi State Bar Ass'n.

EN BANC.

PATTERSON, Chief Justice, for the court:

The order in this cause of August 9, 1978, is adopted as the opinion of the Court to be published as are other formal opinions.

SMITH and ROBERTSON, P. JJ., and SUGG, WALKER, BROOM, LEE, BOWLING and COFER, JJ., concur.

ORDER

This cause came on for hearing upon the Petition of the Mississippi State Bar, called hereafter the Bar, in which the Bar prayed for the following relief:

(1) A special annual assessment to be imposed upon each dues-paying member of the Mississippi State Bar for purposes of financing the disciplinary activities and agencies described in section 73-3-301, et seq., Mississippi Code Annotated (Supp.1977).

(2) A miscellaneous docket fee to be imposed upon each Formal Complaint filed by the Mississippi State Bar with the Clerk of the Supreme Court, said fee to be paid in advance by the Mississippi State Bar and to be recoverable as costs of court as justice and the circumstances of each case may require.

(3) The award of costs and expenses of the Bar connected with litigation of any Formal Complaint as justice and the circumstances of the case may require.

(4) The imposition of an investigation fee upon any attorney disciplined by the Committee on Complaints in an amount not less than Ten Dollars ($10.00) and not more than the actual and reasonably necessary expenses of the investigation.

(5) Collection of items (1) through (4) above as additional Bar dues or in cases of disbarment or suspension as an additional reinstatement fee.

Having heard argument and being advised in the premises, the Court hereby finds as follows:

1) This Court is vested with exclusive and inherent disciplinary jurisdiction over attorneys admitted to practice or otherwise practicing law in Mississippi by its inherent powers as recognized by section 73-3-301 Mississippi Code Annotated (Supp.1977).

2) Section 73-3-373 Mississippi Code Annotated (Supp.1977) acknowledges that the courts of this State have the inherent power to supervise the Bar as an incident to their power to admit attorneys to practice, and recognizes that the judicial branch of government has the inherent power to determine the qualifications of those to be admitted to the practice of law in this state.

3) The inherent rights and powers set forth above are established by other authority including, a) the Mississippi Constitution of 1890, sections 1, 2 and 144, which, respectively, provides separate and distinct departments of government, prohibits one department's exercise of powers properly belonging to another department, and vests the judicial power in this Court and other constitutionally established courts, and b) former decisions of this Court, ex., In re Steen, 160 Miss. 874, 134 So. 67 (1931), Ex Parte Brown, 1 How. 303, Ex parte Cashin, 128 Miss. 224, 90 So. 850 (1922), In re Higgins, 194 Miss. 838, 13 So.2d 329 (1943), and In re Fox, 296 So.2d 701 (Miss. 1974).

4) By act of the Legislature, certain agencies were established, made available and designated for purposes of assisting this Court in the administration of its exclusive and inherent disciplinary jurisdiction, which agencies this Court hereby adopts and accepts for that purpose; namely, as provided by section 73-3-303 Mississippi Code Annotated (Supp.1977), the Board of Commissioners of the Bar, including the Bar's Executive Director and the Complaint Counsel, the Bar's Committee on Complaints, and Complaint Tribunals appointed by this Court.

5) The Board is by statute the governing body of the Bar and is by statute granted certain powers and made subject to Bylaws, not conflicting with statute, which the Bar's membership may adopt (See sections 73-3-101, et seq., Mississippi Code Annotated (Supp.1977)).

6) However, the Board is an agency of this Court for disciplinary purposes, and when it acts within that agency, it acts for this Court in a function separate and distinct from that of the governing body of the Bar.

7) As an agency of this Court, the Board authorized, empowered and directed the President of the Bar to petition this Court for the relief as requested and above set out.

8) The Court has jurisdiction of this cause.

9) The Bar presently derives its funds from dues fixed by statute from which has come the money necessary to discharge the Board's disciplinary agency on behalf of this Court.

10) The Board, by use of Bar funds, i. e., dues, has until this time discharged that agency, but due to the increasing number of complaints and the rising costs of all matters necessitated by the discharge of that agency, the Board cannot continue to do so on the funds made available by the collection of dues without grave and imminent danger to both the discharge of that disciplinary agency and the other good and proper duties and functions of the Bar which the dues were also intended to support.

11) This Court...