Duties and Authority of the Commission

The Commission has the following duties and responsibilities:

A. To exercise, in lawyer disciplinary and disability proceedings only, all rights characteristically reposed in a client by the common law of this State for all Complaints not dismissed after an investigatory hearing, resolved through a negotiated judgment entered by an Investigatory Panel, or dismissed by a Summary Disposition Panel.

B. To monitor and, from time to time as appropriate, to evaluate and report to the Board on the performance of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

C. To retain special counsel or local counsel when necessary.

D. To recommend to the Board such educational programs on legal ethics and lawyer discipline as it may consider advisable.

E. To recommend to the Board an annual budget for the operation of the attorney professional disciplinary and disability system.

F. To meet monthly or at such other times, in such places, and for such periods of time as the business of the Commission requires.

G. To draft and recommend for adoption to the Board the Commission’s internal operating rules and procedures, which rules and procedures, as adopted by the Board, will then be submitted to the Supreme Court for approval and, after approval, be published in the Texas Bar Journal.

H. To recommend to the Board the removal, for cause, of members of Committees.

I. To refer to an appropriate disability screening committee information coming to its attention indicating that an attorney is disabled physically, mentally, or emotionally, or by the use or abuse of alcohol or other drugs.

J. To report to the Board, at each regular meeting, and to the Grievance Oversight Committee, at least annually, on the state of the attorney professional disciplinary and disability system and to make recommendations and proposals to the Board on the refinement and improvement of the system.

K. To formulate and recommend to the Board for adoption a system for monitoring disabled lawyers.

L. To notify each jurisdiction in which an attorney is admitted to practice law of any Sanction imposed in this State, other than a private reprimand (which may include restitution and payment of Attorneys’ Fees), and any disability suspension, resignation, and reinstatement.

M. To provide statistics and reports on lawyer discipline to the National Discipline Data Bank maintained by the American Bar Association.

N. To maintain, subject to the limitations elsewhere herein provided, permanent records of disciplinary and disability matters; and to transmit notice of all public discipline imposed against an attorney, suspensions due to Disability, and reinstatements to the National Discipline Data Bank maintained by the American Bar Association.

O. To make recommendations to the Board on the establishment and maintenance of regional offices as required for the expeditious handling of Inquiries, Complaints, and other disciplinary matters.