Leiser v. Virginia State Bar

Summary

The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed a three-judge circuit court's order suspending attorney Phillip Ben-Zion Leiser's license for three years for violating RPC 8.2 and RPC 8.4(b) by making false or reckless attacks on the integrity of Virginia judges in filings on behalf of two clients. The court held RPC 8.2 constitutional both facially and as applied, reasoning that its actual-malice-tracked language confines it to knowingly or recklessly false statements about judicial qualifications or integrity, and that statements made in pleadings in actively litigated cases receive diminished First Amendment protection. It further held that demurrers are unavailable in disciplinary proceedings without offending due process, that the rule reaches unnamed judges, panels, and the judiciary as a whole, and that the RPC 8.4(b) finding necessarily stood once RPC 8.2 was upheld.