In the Matter of the Petition of Selling
Headline: Court recognizes a state disbarment as a basis to remove a lawyer from this Court’s bar unless serious defects are shown, and orders the lawyer to file the state-court record for review.
Holding: The Court held that a state supreme court’s disbarment establishes lack of fair private and professional character for this Court’s bar unless lack of notice, infirm proof, or another grave reason appears.
- State-court disbarments will generally support removing a lawyer from this Court’s bar.
- Lawyers can avoid removal only by showing lack of notice, weak proof, or another grave reason.
- Requires disbarred lawyers to file state records and allows focused review by this Court.
Summary
Background
George W. Radford is a lawyer admitted in Michigan and later admitted to this Court’s roll. A Michigan trial court found professional misconduct and the Michigan Supreme Court approved his disbarment. Despite that state judgment, Radford continued in Detroit to present himself as a practicing lawyer, which led a special committee of the Detroit Bar Association to ask this Court to strike him from its roll.
Reasoning
The Court considered whether the state-court disbarment should automatically end Radford’s membership here and how much the Court must examine the state record. The Court said it cannot act as an appellate court over the state decision, but it also should not ignore the state finding. As a rule, the Court will treat the state disbarment as showing lack of fair private and professional character unless the state record shows (1) lack of notice or chance to be heard, (2) such weak proof that the Court cannot accept the finding, or (3) some other grave reason to reject the consequence. The Court ordered Radford to file the state records within thirty days and allowed a printed brief to point out any of these defenses.
Real world impact
State disbarments will generally carry strong weight here, but lawyers keep the opportunity to show why a state judgment should not be followed. The decision sets a limited, practical procedure for resolving bar disputes while preserving this Court’s independent duty to decide who may remain on its roll.
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