Virginia State Bar

The predecessor to the VSB was the Virginia State Bar Association (VSBA), a voluntary statewide organization founded in 1888 to promote the ethical practice of law in Virginia. The VSBA worked with the legislature to establish a mandatory state affiliated agency. In 1938 the Virginia General Assembly passed a law (and the governor signed) establishing the VSB, and delegating to it the power to issue regulatory opinions that are incorporated into the Code of Virginia.^[3] The Virginia State Bar Association continued as a voluntary association, renaming itself the Virginia Bar Association.^[7]

The Virginia State Bar reviews complaints against lawyers. There are 17 disciplinary district committees, operating in subcommittees, that review bar complaints in their jurisdiction and determine whether there is sufficient evidence of a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and if so, what the appropriate disposition on the complaint is. The committees speak through their orders, posted online.^[8]

In 1963, the VSB was involved in litigation before the United States Supreme Court. In NAACP v. Button, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Virginia Bar's attempt to use lawyer ethics laws against the NAACP, which was litigating against Virginia school districts as well as state agencies which had adopted a policy of Massive Resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education decisions. The following year the Supreme Court again decided against the Virginia Bar, this time for its prosecution of a union's referral practices in Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar.^[9] In Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar (1975), the bar's minimum fee schedules were stricken down on antitrust grounds, notwithstanding the bar's status as an agency of the Virginia courts. In 1978, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 'Virginia State Bar v. Surety Title Insurance Agency, Inc.,' 571 F.2d 205 (4th Cir. 1978) was faced with the bar's attempt to regulate non-lawyer employees of title insurance companies.^[10]

In 2000,^[11] the Rules of Professional Conduct^[12] replaced the "Code of Professional Responsibility" ^[13] as the rules governing lawyers’ conduct.