United Mine Workers of America, District 12 v. Illinois State Bar Association/Opinion of the Court

The Illinois State Bar Association and others filed this complaint to enjoin the United Mine Workers of America, District 12, from engaging in certain practices alleged to constitute the unauthorized practice of law. The essence of the complaint was that the Union had employed a licensed attorney on a salary basis to represent any of its members who wished his services to prosecute workmen's compensation claims before the Illinois Industrial Commission. The trial court found from facts that were not in dispute that employment of an attorney by the association for this purpose did constitute unauthorized practice and permanently enjoined the Union from '(e)mploying attorneys on salary or retainer basis to represent its members with respect to Workmen's Compensation claims and any and all other claims which they may have under the statutes and laws of Illinois.' The Illinois Supreme Court rejected the Mine Workers' contention that this decree abridged their freedom of speech, petition, and assembly under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and affirmed. We granted certiorari, 386 U.S. 941, 87 S.Ct. 973, 17 L.Ed.2d 872 (1967), to consider whether this holding conflicts with our decisions in Broth. of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar, 377 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1113, 12 L.Ed.2d 89 (1964), and NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963).

As in the Trainmen case, we deal here with a program that has been in successful operation for the Union members for decades. Shortly after enactment of the Illinois Workmen's Compensation Statute in 1911, the Mine Workers realized that some form of mutual protection was necessary to enable them to enjoy in practice the many benefits that the statute promised in theory. At the Union's 1913 convention the secretary-treasurer reported that abuses had already developed: 'the interests of the members were being juggled and even when not, they were required to pay forty or fifty per cent of the amounts recovered in damage suits, for attorney fees.' In response to this situation the convention instructed the Union's incoming executive board to establish the 'legal department' which is now attacked for engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.

The undisputed facts concerning the operation of the Union's legal department are these. The Union employs one attorney on a salary basis to represent members and their dependents in connection with claims for personal injury and death under the Illinois Workmen's Compensation Act. The terms of the attorney's employment, as outlined in a letter from the acting president of the Union to the present attorney, include the following specific provision: 'You will receive no further instructions or directions and have no interference from the District, nor from any officer, and your obligations and relations will be to and with only the several persons you represent.' The record shows no departure from this agreement. The Union provides injured members with forms entitled 'Report to Attorney on Accidents' and advises them to fill out these forms and send them to the Union's legal department. There is no language on the form which specifically requests the attorney to file with the Industrial Commission an application for adjustment of claim on behalf of the injured member, but when one of these forms is received, the attorney presumes that it does constitute such a request. The members may employ other counsel if they desire, and in fact the Union attorney frequently suggests to members that they can do so. In that event the attorney is under instructions to turn the member's file over to the new lawyer immediately.

The applications for adjustment of claim are prepared by secretaries in the Union offices, and are then forwarded by the Secretaries to the Industrial Commission. After the claim is sent to the Commission, the attorney prepares his case from the file, usually without discussing the calim with the member involved. The attorney determines what he believes the claim to be worth, presents his views to the attorney for the respondent coal company during prehearing negotiations, and attempts to reach a settlement. If an agreement between opposing counsel is reached, the Union attorney will notify the injured member, who then decides, in light of his attorney's advice, whether or not to accept the offer. If no settlement is reached, a hearing is held before the Industrial Commission, and unless the attorney has had occasion to discuss a settlement proposal with the member, this hearing will normally be the first time the attorney and his client come into personal contact with each other. It is understood by the Union membership, however, that the attorney is available for conferences on certain days at particular locations. The full amount of any settlement or award is paid directly to the injured member. The attorney receives no part of it, his entire compensation being his annual salary paid by the Union.

The Illinois Supreme Court rejected petitioner's contention that its members had a right, protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, to join together and assist one another in the assertion of their legal rights by collectively hiring an attorney to handle their claims. That court held that our decision in Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia Bar, supra, protected plans under which workers were advised to consult specific attorneys, but did not extend to protect plans involving an explicit hiring of such attorneys by the union. The Illinois court recognized that in NAACP v. Button, supra, we also held protected a plan under which the attorneys recommended to members were actually paid by the association, but the Illinois court viewed the Button case as concerned chiefly with litigation that can be characterized as a form of political expression. We do not think our decisions in Trainmen and Button can be so narrowly limited. We hold that the freedom of speech, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments gives petitioner the right to hire attorneys on a salary basis to assist its members in the assertion of their legal rights.

We start with the premise that the rights to assemble peaceably and to petition for a redress or grievances are among the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. These rights, moreover, are intimately connected both in origin and in purpose, with the other First Amendment rights of free speech and free press. 'All these, though not identical, are inseparable.' Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530, 65 S.Ct. 315, 323, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945). See De Jonge v. State of Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364, 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, 81 L.Ed. 278 (1937). The First Amendment would, however, be a hollow promise if it left government free to destroy or erode its guarantees by indirect restraints so long as no law is passed that prohibits free speech, press, petition, or assembly as such. We have therefore repeatedly held that laws which actually affect the exercise of these vital rights cannot be sustained merely because they were enacted for the purpose of dealing with some evil within the State's legislative competence, or even because the laws do in fact provide a helpful means of dealing with such an evil. Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155 (1939); Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940).

The foregoing were the principles we invoked when we dealt in the Button and Trainmen cases with the right of an association to provide legal services for its members. That the States have broad power to regulate the practice of law is, of course, beyond question. See Trainmen, supra, at 6, 84 S.Ct. at 1116. But it is equally apparent that broad rules framed to protect the public and to preserve respect for the administration of justice can in their actual operation significantly impair the value of associational freedoms. Thus in Button, supra, we dealt with a plan under which the NAACP not only advised prospective litigants to seek the assistance of particular attorneys but in many instances actually paid the attorneys itself. We held that dangers of baseless litigation and conflicting interests between the association and individual litigants far too speculative to justify the broad remedy invoked by the State, a remedy that would have seriously crippled the efforts of the NAACP to vindicate the rights of its members in court. Likewise in the Trainmen case there was a theoretical possibility that the union's interests would diverge from that of the individual litigant members, and there was a further possibility that if this divergence ever occurred, the union's power to cut off the attorney's referral business could induce the attorney to sacrifice the interests of his client. Again we ruled that this very distant possibility of harm could not justify a complete prohibition of the Trainmen's efforts to aid one another in assuring that each injured member would be justly compensated for his injuries.

We think that both the Button and Trainmen cases are controlling here. The litigation in question is, of course, not bound up with political matters of acute social moment, as in Button, but the First Amendment does not protect speech and assembly only to the extent it can be characterized as political. 'Great secular causes, with small ones, are guarded. The grievances for redress of which the right of petition was insured, and with it the right of assembly, are not solely religious or political ones. And the rights of free speech and a free press are not confined to any field of human interest.' Thomas v. Collins, supra, 323 U.S. at 531, 65 S.Ct. at 323. And of course in Trainmen, where the litigation in question was, as here, solely designed to compensate the victims of industrial accidents, we rejected the contention made in dissent, see 377 U.S., at 10, 84 S.Ct. at 1118 (Clark, J.), that the principles announced in Button were applicable only to litigation for political purposes. See 377 U.S., at 8, 84 S.Ct. at 1117.

Nor can the case at bar be distinguished from the Trainmen case in any persuasive way. Here, to be sure, the attorney is actually paid by the Union, not merely the beneficiary of its recommendations. But in both situations the attorney's economic welfare is dependent to a considerable extent on the good will of the union, and if the temptation to sacrifice the client's best interests is stronger in the present situation, it is stronger to a virtually imperceptible degree. In both cases, there was absolutely no indication that the theoretically imaginable divergence between the interests of union and member ever actually arose in the context of a particular lawsuit; indeed in the present case the Illinois Supreme Court itself described the possibility of conflicting interests as, at most, 'conceivabl(e).'

It has been suggested that the Union could achieve its goals by referring members to a specific lawyer or lawyers and then reimbursing the members out of a common fund for legal fees paid. Although a committee of the American Bar Association, in an informal opinion, may have approved such an arrangement, we think the view of the Illinois Supreme Court is more relevant on this point. In the present case itself the Illinois court stressed that where a union recommends attorneys to its members, 'any 'financial connection of any kind" between the union and such attorneys is illegal. It cannot seriously be argued, therefore, that this alternative arrangement would be held proper under the laws of Illinois.

The decree at issue here thus substantially impairs the associational rights of the Mine Workers and is not needed to protect the State's interest in high standards of legal ethics. In the many years the program has been in operation, there has come to light, so far as we are aware, not one single instance of abuse, of harm to clients, of any actual disadvantage to the public or to the profession, resulting from the mere fact of the financial connection between the Union and the attorney who represents its members. Since the operative portion of the decree prohibits any financial connection between the attorney and the Union, the decree cannot stand; and to the extent any other part of the decree forbids this arrangement it too must fall.

The judgment and decree are vacated and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.

Judgment and decree vacated and case remanded.