Lawsuit: Adjourned xEndeavour v. Redmont Bar Association [2021] FCR 89

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xEndeavour
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IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
CIVIL ACTION


xEndeavour
Plaintiff

v.

The Redmont Bar Association
Defendant

COMPLAINT
The Plaintiff complains against the Defendant as follows:

The Redmont Bar Association (RBA) has exceeded the scope of it's responsibilities as defined in the Legal Board Act. In an announcement made by the RBA on 11 August 21, the council passed a bylaw that excludes lawyers from practicing when not registered with the RBA. The RBA does not have the legal ability to make such a mandate.

I. PARTIES
1. xEndeavour (Plaintiff)
2. Redmont Bar Association (Defendant)

II. FACTS
1. The Redmont Bar Association has mandated that all lawyers must register with the board in order to practice law.
2. Section 3 of the Legal Board Act defines the RBA's responsibilities as:
(a) Discuss and debate on legal policy.
(b) Advise Congress on bills relating to legal policy.
(c) Regulate and ensure that lawyers are accurately representing their clients.
(d) Manage the use of Public Defenders.

III. CLAIMS FOR RELIEF
1. There are no grounds under the legal board's responsibilities for the board to mandate registration.

IV. PRAYER FOR RELIEF
The Plaintiff seeks the following from the Defendant:
1. That the mandate to register with the RBA is struck and determined illegal.

V. EVIDENCE
I am hereby tendering the following exhibits into evidence:

Exhibit 1:
1628654095911.png
 
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IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
WRIT OF SUMMONS

The defendant is required to appear before the court in the case of xEndeavour v. Redmont Bar Association. Failure to appear within 72 hours of this summons will result in a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff.

I'd also like to remind both parties to be aware of the Court Rules and Procedures, including the option of an in-game trial should both parties request one.​
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
MOTION TO DISMISS

xEndeavour
Plaintiff

v.

The Redmont Bar Association
Defendant

MOTION TO DISMISS
Defendant move that the complaint in this case be dismissed, and in support thereof, respectfully alleges:
1. This lawsuit is both inaccurate and frivolous and should thus be dismissed.
2. Section 5 of the Legal Board Act, as written by Congress, grants the RBA the power to revoke the practicing license of lawyers. Section 5 includes a list of infractions that could result in such a revocation, but Section 5 does not explicitly state that the list is limited to what is written. Essentially, current law allows the RBA to revoke practicing licenses as the RBA sees fit.
3. Thus, the RBA's new bylaw, which withholds practicing licenses from lawyers who are not registered in the RBA Discord, is entirely legal since the RBA is exercising its power to revoke practicing licenses as the RBA sees fit.
4. Thus, this lawsuit is inaccurate in claiming that the RBA's action is illegal.
5. If the plaintiff disagrees with the RBA's current ability to revoke practicing licenses, then the plaintiff should use the legislative process (not the judicial process) to amend the Legal Board Act because that Act is ultimately responsible for defining the RBA's powers and abilities. In fact, the plaintiff is literally a member of Congress so it should seem that the appropriate avenue for action here is Congress, not the courts. It is highly frivolous for the plaintiff to try to use the courts to punish the RBA for legitimately using a power granted by Congress. The plaintiff is not even challenging the legality of the Legal Board Act, but is rather trying to use the courts to attack the RBA for doing something that complies with that Act. The courts should recognize this frivolous attempt to use the courts as a weapon against the RBA exercising its powers.

DATED: This 11th day of August 2021
 
Can the plaintiff please reiterate or ground the standing of their case? How and why does the RBA not have the authority to mandate registration? Especially in the context of Section 4, Section 5, and Section 8 of the Legal Board Act?

The plaintiff has 72 hours to come up with a written response or this case will be dismissed. The Court requests that the defendant not make any objections to the plaintiff's response.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
CIVIL ACTION


xEndeavour
Plaintiff

v.

The Redmont Bar Association
Defendant

RESPONSE

1. The crux of my argument is that the RBA cannot legally mandate lawyers register with the board.

2. Section 3 of the Legal Board Act defines the RBA's responsibilities as:

(a) Discuss and debate on legal policy.
(b) Advise Congress on bills relating to legal policy.
(c) Regulate and ensure that lawyers are accurately representing their clients.
(d) Manage the use of Public Defenders.

It is clear that within the Legal Board Act, the board has the power to disbar lawyers (i.e. remove their ability to practice law as a lawyer). However, there is no provision for a lawyer to need to register with the bar, or for the bar to impose that on lawyers, who, by law are already members of the board.

So I pose the following question of law:

Does the RBA have the power to admit members to the bar, requiring them to register?

Prior to this announcement the legal exams have been a defacto, automatic license to practice as a qualified lawyer. This is supported in Section 2 of the Legal Board Act, whereby the purpose of the bill was that that board be 'composed of all lawyers, which include Solicitors, Barristers, and Attorneys.' Allowing registration implies that there is a degree of discretion in the process, which was not established under the powers or responsibilities of the board. Rather, the board was established to be a regulator of lawyers, not a regulator of who should be a lawyer. It is for these reasons that the board's mandated registration policy is contrary to law.

DATED: This 11th day of August 2021
 
This court must apologize. It'll need 48 more hours to be able to process this. The Judge has a major exam (The LSAT) Sunday morning eastern standard time. If the Plaintiff wishes to submit a request to have a different judge adjudicate then they may feel free to. Otherwise, I will put this court into recess and make my response to the motion to dismiss in 48 hours.
 
The Motion to Dismiss is denied on grounds of section 3 to open for further debate. Since this is a matter of law and for the sake of brevity I'm going to shorten the court case length by moving to only have opening statements followed by a rebuttal from both sides.

The defendant can now post their opening statement in response to the lawsuit. They may have 72 hours to do so.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT

ANSWER TO COMPLAINT

xEndeavour
Plaintiff

v.

Redmont Bar Association
Defendant

I. ANSWER TO COMPLAINT
1. The RBA was within its legal rights to withhold practicing licenses from lawyers not registered on the RBA Discord.

II. DEFENCES
1. As written in section 3 of the legal Board Act, one of the duties of the RBA is to discuss and debate on legal policy. We did this and then changed our legal policy to require registration with the RBA. Furthermore, the Act does not even explicitly limit our duties to those written in the Act.
2. Section 4 of the Legal Board Act explicitly grants the RBA the ability to revoke a lawyer's ability to file cases for clients, which is referred to as a "practicing license" by the RBA and its bylaws. Section 4 does not put any limitations on the RBA's ability to revoke practicing licenses, other than that the RBA Council must vote to revoke the license. The Council did (unanimously) vote to temporarily revoke the licenses of non-registered lawyers until they register, which is fully legal under Section 4
3. Section 5 of the Legal Board Act, as written by Congress, again continues to support the idea that the RBA can revoke/withhold practicing licenses. Section 5 once more does not put explicit limits on the exercise of that power.
4. Section 8 of the Legal Board Act states that the RBA may moderate recruitment in the legal profession at the RBA's discretion. Section 8, Subsection 2 also says that the RBA may create additional requirements for the legal exams. This new rule is doing that by requiring that if someone passes a legal exam to become a lawyer, they then need to register their new lawyer job with the RBA by presenting proof of passing the legal exam to the RBA.

By making this submission, I agree I understand the penalties of lying in court and the fact that I am subject to perjury should I knowingly make a false statement in court.

DATED: This 16th day of August 2021
 
The plaintiff may now post a rebuttal within the next 72 hours. Afterward, when the plaintiff makes their rebuttal, the defendant will have 72 hours to make their own. I will then follow up with a verdict.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
CIVIL ACTION


xEndeavour
Plaintiff

v.

The Redmont Bar Association
Defendant

OPENING STATEMENT

Your honour, I pose the following points of law to the court to support my argument that the RBA does not have the power to admit members to the bar.

1. The RBA 'shall be a board composed of all lawyers, which include Solicitors, Barristers, and Attorneys' (Legal Board Act, 2020, Section 2) clearly defines the purpose of the organisation. All who practice law are automatic members of this organisation and there is no two ways about it. This is as literal as it is written, and is echoed in a mischief interpretation by way of it's purpose. This very sentence is the crux of my argument and demonstrates that the RBA is acting outside the law.

2. The defendant, however, argues for a wider interpretation of Section 3 of the Legal Board Act whereby the RBA is able to draw it's powers to admit members to the bar. The purpose of a legal board is arguably to allow the legal fraternity an opportunity to have a collective input on matters affecting law, and to then advise the Government of it's opinion on policy when asked. The Executive is the Government's policy-making branch. While the RBA is facilitated by the Attorney General, it is it's own entity, separate to that of Government (i.e. I am suing the RBA currently, not the Government. The Attorney General is not representing the RBA, the internally elected Chairman is because the AG represents the Government). Therefore, there is no remit for the board to make and implement policy, only to debate and discuss it.

3. As I have previously stated, it's the RBAs job to regulate lawyers in the context of ensuring accurate representation (Legal Board Act, 2020, Section 3), not to regulate a discriminatory process of who can become a lawyer. As you will have noticed, there is no law that supports the notion that the board can specifically discriminate on the patronage of the profession - they can discriminate by removing a lawyers right to practice (Legal Board Act, 2020, Section 5). Registration is discriminatory by nature, as the board has the implied ability to deny a registration. The organisation can, however, limit the recruitment across the board to the legal profession. This is an exclusive power that the organisation is granted and can only be achieved by shutting the exams, at the RBAs discretion (Legal Board Act, 2020, Section 8). Limiting recruitment without shutting the exams would be in breach of Section 2 of the act.

4. In the defendant's opening statement they stated that 'Section 5 of the Legal Board Act, as written by Congress, again continues to support the idea that the RBA can revoke/withhold practicing licenses. Section 5 once more does not put explicit limits on the exercise of that power'. The plaintiff agrees, in that section 5 of the act provides for section 4 and is supported by section 3. Section 5 is entitled 'terms for removal,' which supports my argument that there is no capacity to admit to the RBA in a discriminatory manner, otherwise it would have been defined as removal has been.

5. If the argument is made that the RBA can place additional requirements to take a legal exam, it cannot be a post-exam registration, as that is contradiction with Section 3.

DATED: This 17th day of August 2021
 
REBUTTAL

1. The plaintiff refers to Section 2 to claim that all lawyers are entitled to automatic RBA membership. While this may be true, this does not allow all lawyers to claim permanent membership, and it makes no references to practicing licenses. Lawyers are subject to being removed as RBA members, being disbarred, and/or having their practicing license taken, as per the Legal Board Act. The RBA’s new rule is not stopping lawyers from having their automatic membership, but rather the rule is temporarily withholding practicing licenses. Licenses and memberships are separate and distinct things, and furthermore, the RBA is only temporary withholding licenses (which are not subject to Section 2) until lawyers submit a simple single screenshot to register.

2. The plaintiff claims that the RBA is not part of the government since the RBA is not represented by the Attorney General. This is possibly inaccurate and debatable. In the case AlexanderLove v. RBA, the AG did represent the RBA. In this current case, the AG is not doing so. Thus, it is not clear whether or not the RBA is part of the government, and if so which branch. Regardless, it doesn’t matter whether the RBA is government or not, because the RBA derives its powers from those granted in the Legal Board Act by Congress, which is a clear part of government.

3. This point is highly inaccurate. The RBA’s new rule is not at all discriminatory. In fact, to accompany this new rule, the RBA passed a related bylaw amendment that requires that once a lawyer sends the screenshot to register, they are automatically granted their practicing license without any need for approval by the RBA Council or Chair, thus stopping any possibility of discrimination.

4. Lawyers who do not register will consequently, according to the new rule, have their practicing licenses temporarily removed. Thus, the RBA is in fact following the “terms for removal” because it is technically a removal.

5. Section 3 (Responsibilities) does not in any way say that the RBA doesn’t have the right to require that successful test results be reported to the RBA to formally be registered as the lawyer job that was just earned by passing the test.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
CIVIL ACTION


xEndeavour
Plaintiff

v.

The Redmont Bar Association
Defendant

RESPONSE

1. Section 2 of the Legal Board Act provides that all members of the legal fraternity are members of the board. The RBA can't change that. That is fact and the board cannot control it's membership. If you are a lawyer, you are a member by default and the board cannot strip you of that membership, regardless of the status' they have been assigning such as permeant or temporary. I believe there is a misconception that disbarring someone is different to the idea of a practicing license. The RBA only has the power to disbar someone with respect to Section 5 - 'their ability to file a lawsuit for someone else.' The defence makes it out that disbarring is removing someone from the RBA, and that practicing licenses are separate and are in accordance with Section 5. This is not the case, they are, by law, the same thing. This is supported by section 3 of the Legal Board Act whereby the board is responsible for regulating lawyers with respect to quality of representation. The RBA is not in control of patronage of the legal fraternity. The lawyer exams are designed to be a benchmark which thereafter allow someone to practice law as a lawyer. It is the RBA which then have the power to remove someone's ability to practice law on someone else's behalf (Legal Board, Act 2020, Section 3(iii)). The RBA is making the argument that they are automatically disbarring lawyers who pass their exams which is unlawful according to section 5 of the Legal Board Act.

2. The defence has admitted it draws it's powers solely from the Legal Board Act, of which there is no provision for the creation of public policy. The defence has previously stated that they "changed [their] legal policy to require registration with the RBA." The RBA can have internal by-laws/policies, however it cannot implement public policy such as the requirement to register. Even then, law trumps policy.

3. The premise of this argument is illegal. Refer to my aforementioned argument in part 1 of this response as to why the RBA is illegally disbarring lawyers.

4. The defence is arguing that the RBA is within their rights to disbar a lawyer. This is correct, however, in order to grant them this practicing license, they need to be already disbarred. Automatically disbarring, again, is against section 5 of the Legal Board Act.

5. Section 3 doesn't say a lot of things about what rights the RBA doesn't have. It can't be assumed that an omission equals a reserve power. That is a dangerous precedent to set.

DATED: This 20th day of August 2021
 
Pardon me, but I believe the presiding judge said that there would be no further arguments after the defendant’s rebuttal. See post #10 of the thread.

Your Honor, I respectfully ask that the plaintiff’s latest arguments (post #14) be stricken from the record and ignored.
 
Objection - I made an opening statement and a rebuttal.

I'm going to shorten the court case length by moving to only have opening statements followed by a rebuttal from both sides.
Click to expand...
 
xEndeavour said:
Objection - I made an opening statement and a rebuttal.
Click to expand...
I considered the first post to create the lawsuit your opening statements. As noted within post #10 I said that you may post the rebuttal.

nnmc said:
Pardon me, but I believe the presiding judge said that there would be no further arguments after the defendant’s rebuttal. See post #10 of the thread.

Your Honor, I respectfully ask that the plaintiff’s latest arguments (post #14) be stricken from the record and ignored.
Click to expand...

Sustained.

I'm working on the verdict, I hope to have it out within 6 hours.
 

Verdict

After careful consideration, this court has reached a verdict. This has been an interesting court case and I'm sorry for the delays on my side. I wanted to expedite the process as much as I could but this case went on longer than I would have preferred given the serious need for clarity on the issue of law. I would urge all parties both involved and not involved to read The Court's Opinion before reading The Verdict.

Plaintiff's Arguments:

1. There are no grounds under the legal board's responsibilities for the board to mandate registration.
2. The organisation can, however, limit the recruitment across the board to the legal profession. This is an exclusive power that the organisation is granted and can only be achieved by shutting the exams, at the RBAs discretion (Legal Board Act, 2020, Section 8)
3. that the board be 'composed of all lawyers, which include Solicitors, Barristers, and Attorneys.' Allowing registration implies that there is a degree of discretion in the process, which was not established under the powers or responsibilities of the board.

Defendant's Arguments:

1. As written in section 3 of the legal Board Act, one of the duties of the RBA is to discuss and debate on legal policy. We did this and then changed our legal policy to require registration with the RBA. Furthermore, the Act does not even explicitly limit our duties to those written in the Act.
2. Section 4 of the Legal Board Act explicitly grants the RBA the ability to revoke a lawyer's ability to file cases for clients, which is referred to as a "practicing license" by the RBA and its bylaws. Section 4 does not put any limitations on the RBA's ability to revoke practicing licenses, other than that the RBA Council must vote to revoke the license. The Council did (unanimously) vote to temporarily revoke the licenses of non-registered lawyers until they register, which is fully legal under Section 4
3. Section 8 of the Legal Board Act states that the RBA may moderate recruitment in the legal profession at the RBA's discretion. Section 8, Subsection 2 also says that the RBA may create additional requirements for the legal exams. This new rule is doing that by requiring that if someone passes a legal exam to become a lawyer, they then need to register their new lawyer job with the RBA by presenting proof of passing the legal exam to the RBA.

The Court's Opinion:
This Court has been mulling over back and forth on whom the verdict should go to. Mostly because it understands the frustration that the plaintiff feels while also understanding that such a verdict heavily impacts the RBA functioning powers. I have been reading into AlexanderLove v. The Redmont Bar Association [Case No. 07-2021-06] as a guide to part of my decision-making process. The verdict of that case is relatively new and affects the RBA's powers on disbarment. There is an important part of the opinion that I will paste here.

1. The Court believes that the Redmont Bar Association acted outside of their legal right to revoke somebody's legal license and had illegally revoked their license, the fact that somebody's client does not agree with how they handled something does not mean they didn't provide an effective service, however with the added note that now it would be legal to revoke t due to an amendment to the Legal Board Act passed by congress, however, due to the revocation of the Plaintiff's license and the offense listed happening before the passage of the amendment, it does not apply in this circumstance.

I post this for a very specific reason.

When this decision came down, Judge Bubbarc, believed that in order for the RBA to disbar someone, it must fall into one of the four categories outlined by the Legal Boards Act section 4. The argument was that the plaintiff was illegally disbarred, the defendant claimed that their disbarment fell under category 3 of the Legal Boards Act section 4. When the Judge determined that the disbarment did not fall under category 3, then it did not fit any legal reason for disbarment and was thus declared illegal. Going against this ruling would be going against stare decisis. It can therefore be concluded that the Legal Boards Act Section 4 is an exhaustive list and disbarment can only happen for the following reasons:

(1) Anyone may be subject to their ability to file a lawsuit for someone else being revoked should they breach the following;
(2) Lawyers must respect attorney-client privilege and cannot reveal information told in private by their client.
(a) Lawyers cannot be held accountable for conspiracy if practising the use of attorney-client privilege; with the exception of being involved in the conspiracy.
(b) Lawyers may break attorney-client privilege should the individual be involved in corruption or pose an imminent threat to the safety of others.
(3) Lawyers must ensure they are providing effective counsel in representing their clients in court.
(4) Lawyers must ensure they are abiding by any other procedure or terms set out by the courts.

The defendant is enacting this ban through an extensive and all-encompassing disbarment: "The Council did (unanimously) vote to temporarily revoke the licenses of non-registered lawyers until they register, which is fully legal under Section 4". This is, unfortunately, illegal as it does not fit into any of the above reasons for disbarment. It is this court's opinion that any preemptive disbarment is illegal. Additionally, any disbarment process should only include one person per vote unless the circumstances that rise to disbarment include two lawyers.

However, writing such a verdict standalone would cripple this policy and severely hurt the RBA's ability to maintain and regulate the legal profession. This Court does not believe that having lawyers join the RBA discord is in any way discriminatory or illegal. In fact, as pointed out by the plaintiff, the RBA is supposed to be "a board composed of all lawyers, which include Solicitors, Barristers, and Attorneys". How is the RBA supposed to include all lawyers if lawyers refuse to join the discord server of the organization? This is where this court believes that the Legal Boards Act Section 8 comes into play:

8 - Limiting recruitment
(1) Recruitment within the legal profession is to be moderated by the DCBA (RBA) Council at their discretion.
(2) Additional requirements to take the Legal exams may be required by the DCBA (RBA), such as but not limited to, an application.

There are two things that immediately stick out to me. The first is that the RBA is allowed to moderate the legal profession "at their discretion". So the argument that the RBA can only limit recruitment into the legal field by closing the exams is incorrect. The second is that the RBA is allowed to create additional requirements to enter the legal field. It can therefore be concluded that recruitment of the legal profession can be moderated by the RBA through the use of additional requirements not limited to an application. Such as potentially having a requirement to join the RBA discord prior to being allowed to take the legal exam.

Thus we arrive at the crux of the case. Ultimately this is a compromise. This court does see that the current methods that the RBA is employing to force lawyers to join their discord server to be illegal. However, it also understands the purpose of trying to make everyone join, and has thus found a legal compromise to the problem.

The Verdict:
This Court rules in favor of the plaintiff. The Court holds the view that disbarment can only be done through the terms listed in section 5 of the Legal Boards Act and that the list is exhaustive. The RBA must have a vote for each individual it wants to disbar, with the exception being if there are multiple lawyers implicated in a single situation. The RBA also cannot pre-emptively disbar people who have not joined the profession yet.

However, the Court believes that recruitment of the legal profession can be moderated by the RBA through the use of additional requirements not limited to an application because of the Legal Boards Act Section 8. It also holds the view that having lawyers join the discord server, which is the primary and only place where the RBA does most of the operations. Since the RBA is a board composed of all lawyers, which include Solicitors, Barristers, and Attorneys, it should therefore be concluded that all lawyers should be on the RBA discord server. Having a fair process that would have people equally get on the RBA discord server does not violate the Right XIII. The contrapositive of this logical statement is that if one cannot be on the RBA discord server then one cannot be a lawyer. Since all lawyers should be on the RBA discord server. This is because the RBA is a board composed of all lawyers and the RBA primarily and only operates within the RBA discord.

This court hereby orders the following:
1. The RBA immediately ends its policy of disbarring all lawyers unless they join the discord server.
2. The RBA cannot preemptively disbar people who have not joined the profession yet.
3. The RBA must from now on vote on each individual it wishes to disbar unless the lawyers were involved in the same situation.
4. The RBA can set up a discord requirement for all people who wish to take any of the legal exams and prevent people from taking the test until they've joined the RBA discord.

Thank you for your patience with the Court in this matter. If Defendant wishes to appeal this decision they may. I hope that I have found the best compromise for this situation.

This court is now adjourned.

 
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