A Fifth District Court of Appeals panel has rekindled a New Orleans attorney’s federal lawsuit that challenges the mandatory dues policy of the Louisiana State Bar Association (LSBA).
A federal district court had previously rejected the arguments of Randy Boudreaux, who argued that the association should not force lawyers in the state to pay annual dues. In particular, Boudreaux objected to his dues going toward bar association activities he considered political advocacy.
The Fifth District panel reversed the district court’s decision and sent the case back to the Eastern District of Louisiana, suggesting that the bar association’s activities likely go beyond what’s germane to the legal profession.
In his complaint, Boudreaux identified the bar association’s support for a moratorium on executions, opposition to civil immunity reforms and support for changing high schools’ civics curricula as politically or ideologically based. Other activities mentioned in Boudreaux’s lawsuit include LSBA’s lobbying against allowing school employees to carry firearms on campuses.
“With these allegations, Boudreaux plausibly pleads that LSBA’s political and legislative activity goes beyond what’s constitutionally permissible under (the U.S. Supreme Case Lathrop v. Donohue) – that the activity is not justified by the state’s interest in regulating and improving the legal profession,” the Fifth District panel said in its opinion.
The three-judge panel’s decision also implied that Boudreaux has a reasonable chance of prevailing in a future trial.
“Discovery may bear out that the LSBA does not actually engage in any non-germaine activity,” the court said. “But at this stage, we take Boudreaux’s allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor.”
Ideally, the bar association should be required to do more than simply curtail its advocacy activities, according to Boudreaux.
“The bar association refraining from political stances would be an improvement but a completely voluntary membership would be a preferable resolution,” he told the Louisiana Record in an email.
The current annual dues amount for those who have been bar association members for three years or more is $200. As of 2019, 31 states require attorneys to become bar association members in order to practice their profession. Similar litigation to overturn mandatory dues policies has been filed in other states.