Inadmissible: Civility Proposal Met With Hostility

The most common route for Texas lawyers to work their way up at firms is to start as a summer associate, move to an associate, and then to partner. Alex Roberts, who just found out he will become a partner in the Houston litigation firm of Beck Redden on Jan. 1, 2015, took that progression to an extreme. Roberts’ first job at the firm was a part-time position in the records department that he began in 2000 while an undergraduate at the University of Houston. “I got to see first-hand what the lawyers in this firm were doing and it did inspire me to go to law school,” he said. While on his pre-law stint at Beck Redden, Roberts said he helped maintain files and later worked as a project assistant to paralegals. “You look back and I’ve done just about everything in this office,” he said. Roberts, who graduated from the University of Houston Law Center in 2006, said he worked as a summer associate at Beck Redden, and then started as an associate in 2007 after clerking for U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas. David Beck, a partner in Beck Redden, said the firm hired Roberts as an associate because he had “impeccable credentials,” having been editor-in-chief of his law review and also a federal clerk. Roberts made partner because he is an “excellent writer, very bright, and perhaps best of all, he works really hard,” Beck said. Beck admits that well after Roberts started working as an associate, he was visiting with the younger lawyer and commented that Roberts looked very much like someone who used to work in the firm’s mailroom. “David, I was that person,” Beck recalls Roberts told him.

Civility Proposal Met with Hostility

A proposal to add a promise to remain civil to the oath for new lawyers was met with some hostility at recent meeting of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee, with one member calling it a “stupid idea.” The Texas Chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates will be backing a bill in the Texas Legislature to amend the oath, and the Texas Supreme Court has expressed agreement with the proposal, Tex-ABOTA President Don Jackson told SCAC members. The bill would add to the oath, “I will conduct myself with integrity and civility in dealing and communicating with all parties.” SCAC member Richard G. Munzinger blasted the idea. Lawyers are supposed to fight as hard as they can for their clients. He asked, if a lawyer pointed a finger at opposing counsel, would it break the civility oath and lead to sanctions? “I don’t think it has any place in an adversarial profession where tempers run high,” said Munzinger, shareholder in Scott Hulse Marshall in El Paso. But Jackson said he wouldn’t support the idea of sanctions and noted that it’s possible to be zealous for a client and still be civil. SCAC member Rusty Hardin said he supported a civility oath. He’s sometimes amazed at a lawyer’s tone when writing and speaking, he said. If attorneys had to take the oath, a judge might better control his courtroom just by reminding an out-of-control lawyer about his oath. “It gives judges a tool and sets a tone with us as lawyers,” said Hardin, founding partner of Rusty Hardin & Associates in Houston.

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