FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, DC – A federal court based in Philadelphia today preliminarily enjoined enforcement of a Rule of Professional Conduct aimed at disciplining attorneys for their speech. HLLI challenged Rule 8.4(g) on behalf of attorney Zachary Greenberg, a Pennsylvania-licensed attorney working for a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of students’ constitutional rights and regularly speaks at legal education and other professional events on a variety of hot-button legal issues.
Rule 8.4(g) threatened to impose civil and professional sanction on Greenberg and other Pennsylvania attorneys if someone hearing their speech misconstrued it as a manifestation of bias or prejudice and registered a complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Rule 8.4(g) did not clearly define “bias or prejudice,” but it did penalize the use of “words” that supposedly manifest bias or prejudice.
The court agreed with Greenberg that the Rule’s threat of a disruptive, intrusive, and expensive investigatory hearing and formal discipline of speech would have an “chilling effect” on Pennsylvania attorneys’ speech if it were allowed to go into effect and consisted of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.
“Today’s opinion safeguards essential First Amendment principles,” said HLLI attorney Adam Schulman. “State regulators may not anoint themselves arbiters of viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas. Attorneys have no monopoly on truth but they are every bit as entitled as any other citizen to share their opinions publicly.”
“Pennsylvania attorneys do not shed their First Amendment rights upon earning their law license. This ruling affirms that the expressive rights of the legal profession may not be stifled merely because the government dislikes what we have to say,” said Greenberg.
Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute is a nonprofit public interest law firm formed in 2019. HLLI challenges administrative and regulatory actions and abuses of the class action and civil justice system that exceed constitutional limits, promote rent-seeking, or otherwise improperly created deadweight loss; and challenges improper restrictions on speech and other actions beyond constitutional bounds.
HLLI’s website is http://hlli.org.
Contact:
Ted Frank, 703-203-3848, ted.frank@hlli.org
Adam Schulman, 610-457-0856, adam.schulman@hlli.org