The State Bar of Texas is seeking a decision from the Texas Office of the Attorney General with regard to a flurry of requests for attorneys’ e-mail addresses. In a Sept. 3 letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott, State Bar executive director Michelle Hunter requests a determination by the AG that Texas Government Code §552.1176 excepts from disclosure certain personal information that the Bar maintains.
On Aug. 23, Texas Lawyer reported that State Bar officials had released the e-mail addresses of about 63,000 State Bar members to Marni von Wilpert, a Fordham University School of Law student who worked as a law clerk this summer at the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin. As reported by Texas Lawyer , Bar officials released those e-mail addresses to von Wilpert on Aug. 16, after she sued the State Bar for refusing to release the information when she originally requested it. On Aug. 14, von Wilpert filed von Wilpert v. State Bar of Texas, et al. in a state district court in Travis County, seeking a declaratory judgment that Bar officials had violated the Texas Public Information Act by refusing her request for the e-mails. [See the original petition.]
