VIDEO: Some lawyers can recover legal careers after bar discipline

Josh Walthall has seen both sides of state Bar discipline of lawyers. He previously served as a state Bar prosecutor, and his practice now includes defending lawyers facing grievance prosecutions. In the cover story for the March edition of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, he offers advice to attorneys who want to get their legal practices back online after being disciplined by the bar. His input includes:

• “If they were disbarred or suspended, they should go through the reinstatement process that is spelled out in the state Bar regulations.”
• “If it was public written discipline or even private written discipline, I recommended that they learn from that, that they improve their practices going forward and they make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
• “There are some times when lawyers are completely disbarred and therefore cannot come back into the practice, and I’ve seen a number of them find success as a paralegal or an administrative assistant of some kind at a law firm.”

Look for the cover story on Bar discipline to be published later this month in the print edition of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly and to be posted online soon at nclawyersweekly.com.

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