Law Commons^™

The Legacy Of Johnson V. Darr: The 1925 Decision Of The All-Woman Texas Supreme Court, Jeffrey D. Dunn

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas Supreme Court case of Johnson v. Darr,[1] the first case decided in any state by an all-woman appellate court, was a singular event in American legal history. On January 9, 1925, three women lawyers appointed by Texas Governor Pat Neff met at the state capitol in Austin to issue rulings solely on one case involving conflicting claims to several residential properties in El Paso. The special court was appointed because the three elected justices recused themselves over a conflict of interest involving one of the litigants, a popular fraternal organization called Woodmen of the World. The special …

Revisiting The History Of The Independent State Legislature Doctrine, Hayward H. Smith

St. Mary's Law Journal

In hopes of legitimizing the independent state legislature doctrine, its proponents have recently made two claims with respect to history, which this Article refers to as the Substance/Procedure Thesis and the Prevailing View Thesis. The former admits that the original understanding was that state “legislatures” promulgating election law pursuant to the Elector Appointment and Elections Clauses are required to comply with state constitutionally-mandated “procedural” lawmaking requirements (such as a potential gubernatorial veto), but asserts that they were otherwise understood to be independent of “substantive” state constitutional restraints. The latter asserts that the independent state legislature doctrine was the “prevailing view” …

Anti-Discrimination Ethics Rules And The Legal Profession, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

“Reputation ought to be the perpetual subject of my Thoughts, and Aim of my Behaviour. How shall I gain a Reputation! How shall I Spread an Opinion of myself as a Lawyer of distinguished Genius, Learning, and Virtue.” So wrote twenty-four-year-old John Adams in his diary in 1759. He had been a licensed lawyer for just three years at that time and had already believed himself to be hounded by “Petty foggers” and “dirty Dablers in the Law”—unlicensed attorneys who, Adams claimed, fomented vexatious litigation for the fees they might earn.

Adams believed his embrace of virtue, along with genius …

The Fall Of An American Lawyer, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

John Randall is the only former president of the American Bar Association to be disbarred. He wrote a will for a client, Lovell Myers, with whom Randall had been in business for over a quarter-century. The will left all of Myers’s property to Randall, and implicitly disinherited his only child, Marie Jensen. When Jensen learned of the existence of a will, she sued to set it aside. She later filed a complaint with the Iowa Committee on Professional Ethics and Conduct. That complaint was the catalyst leading to Randall’s disbarment.

Randall had acted grievously in serving as Lovell Myers’s attorney. …