In an opinion released today, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed a finding of multiple ethical violations by Knoxville attorney Loring Justice and reinstated a three-year suspension imposed by a hearing panel of the Board of Professional Responsibility.
Although Mr. Justice was previously disbarred in 2019, that disbarment was not permanent under the applicable professional ethics rules at that time. As a result, Mr. Justice remains subject to additional discipline such as the suspension approved in today’s opinion. The Court has since revised the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct to provide that any disbarment after the effective date of the revisions will be permanent.
In 2013, Mr. Justice was involved in a child custody dispute involving his minor child and the child's mother. During these proceedings, Mr. Justice and his co-counsel filed various motions containing numerous insulting and inflammatory statements about the judge presiding over the case. In 2018, the Board of Professional Responsibility filed a petition for discipline against Mr. Justice, alleging that his use of these statements violated the Rules of Professional Conduct.
A hearing panel of the Board of Professional Responsibility held a hearing on the petition in 2021. The panel found that Mr. Justice violated multiple Rules of Professional Conduct and determined that he should be suspended from practicing law for three years.
Mr. Justice appealed to chancery court, challenging both the finding that he violated professional conduct rules and raising procedural issues regarding his case. Following a hearing, chancery court denied relief on these issues but affirmed that Mr. Justice had indeed violated professional conduct rules. However, it concluded that the hearing panel erred in applying American Bar Association Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions and increased his punishment to disbarment instead of suspension.
Mr. Justice then appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, raising similar procedural challenges and arguing against his increased punishment to disbarment. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed chancery court's rulings except on increasing his punishment to disbarment; it reinstated the original three-year suspension imposed by the hearing panel to begin immediately and run concurrently with his prior disbarment.
Chief Justice Kirby wrote a separate opinion concurring with most parts but disagreeing with some reasoning by majority justices: "Chief Justice Kirby would have used disbarment as presumptive sanction because Mr. Justice engaged in misconduct to benefit himself personally." Nevertheless, she agreed with imposing suspension instead based on precedents from similar offenses.
To read majority opinion authored by Justice Jeff Bivins along with Chief Justice Holly Kirby’s separate opinion in Loring E. Justice v. Board of Professional Responsibility visit opinions section at TNCourts.gov.