Contact: Osler McCarthy, staff attorney for public information (512) 463-1441 or click for email
Friday, September 2, 2005
Under emergency provisions to assist clients in Hurricane Katrina-ravaged regions, the Texas Supreme Court ordered Friday that Texas will permit lawyers from Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama to practice law from Texas locations.
“We’re acting to honor the immediate needs of clients whose lawyers have been forced from their offices by the vast destruction Katrina inflicted,” said Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson.
In an order approved Friday, the Court acted to assure lawyers displaced from Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama who established temporary offices in Texas that they could continue to serve their clients without fear that they might be practicing law in Texas illegally. The Court's order is attached to this email.
The Court’s order will be in effect for 30 days. In the meantime the Court will review other provisions to accommodate emergency circumstances and establish registration procedures to communicate with out-of-state lawyers displaced in Texas.
Lawyers from the affected states should contact the State Bar of Texas’ Membership Department.
The Court also instructed the State Bar to withhold suspension notices for lawyers in the affected regions who had not paid dues for their existing Texas licenses. The Texas Board of Law Examiners also was directed to waive late fees for lawyers from Katrina-affected regions who were planning to take the next Texas bar examination but had not met the August 30 deadline for paying bar exam registration fees.