I continue to be dumbfounded by Tennessee’s system of regulating the law profession — even as I now am no longer part of it. Today, more than three months after I sent in a renewed application to withdraw my Tennessee law license, I finally received word that the Supreme Court of Tennessee has (at my request) agreed that I may voluntarily resign that license.
Why should it take three months worth of review, from three different regulating bodies (the Board of Professional Responsibility, the Board of Law Examiners, and the Continuing Legal Education autory) and the highest Constitutional court of that state, to let a lawyer voluntarily surrender his law license? While Tennessee bar dues, by themselves, are much cheaper than California’s, I’m beginning to see the wisdom of simply consolidating all of the functions of regulating attorneys into the state bar so that it can handle these sorts of things quickly.
Of course, if it had been the California Bar I was looking to step away from, I could have voluntarily placed my license in suspense, rather than giving it up altogether. And it would have taken my sending in a single form and confirming it with a phone call a few days later before it took effect.
In any event, I am no longer able to practice law in the state of Tennessee.
