holding that the constitutional separation of powers prohibited the legislature from regulating admission to practice and discipline of lawyers
How later courts described this case
- holding that the constitutional separation of powers prohibited the legislature from regulating admission to practice and discipline of lawyers
- holding that legislature could not enact law regulating admission to practice and discipline of lawyers
- “Any legislatively-enacted provision regarding bar admissions that conflicts with or is repugnant to a Supreme Court rule mustfall”
- " W.Va. Code, 30-2-1, as amended, is an unconstitutional usurpation of this Court's exclusive authority to regulate admission to the practice of law in this State."
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
NEELY, Justice,
concurring:
I concur in the result in this case but for slightly different reasons than those stated by the majority. The 1981 amendment to W.Va.Code, 30-2-1 [1972] did not have the effect of requiring a bar examination of graduates of West Virginia University’s College of Law. The amendment merely eliminated the time-honored, statutory diploma privilege that was enacted by the Legislature when it was thought that the Legislature could control certain aspects of the practice of law.
*426 I do not agree with the majority that all aspects of the practice of law in West Virginia are within the exclusive control of the Supreme Court of Appeals. In this regard I fail to find the recent cases of this Court particularly persuasive. Nemo debet esse judex in propria causa. In my opinion, a legislative act requiring a bar examination would be within the prerogative of the Legislature under W.Va. Const., art. VIII, §§ 1 and 3. However, the effect of the 1981 legislative amendment to Code, 30-2-1 [1972] that is now in question was not to require a bar examination of graduates of the West Virginia University College of Law, but rather to eliminate the legislatively mandated diploma privilege.
Our Rule 1.020 allows graduates of the College of Law to be admitted to practice without examination. Since the Legislature has not attempted to invalidate our Rule 1.020, I see no reason that Rule 1.020 should not remain in force and effect. Had the Legislature intended to require a bar examination they would have said so. In fact, the Legislature merely placed this question within the Court’s discretion.
I despise bureaucratic requirements that demand that people perform vain acts. In a state like West Virginia where we have a competent law school specializing in West Virginia law, a bar examination becomes nothing but a nuisance. Consequently, I am pleased to leave the diploma privilege in place, but I believe that it is within the legislative prerogative to require by a specific statute that all candidates for admission to the bar take a bar examination.
Finally, my understanding of this matter is instructed by two great principles: First, one should always attempt to avoid the inveterate human compulsion to make the other man’s life miserable for no ostensible reason; and second, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.