Nathan E. Brooks v. Board of Professional Responsibility

Summary

Justice Sharon G. Lee concurs in the Tennessee Supreme Court’s dismissal of Nathan E. Brooks’s petition to reinstate his law license because he failed to pay the advance cost deposit required by Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 9, section 30.4(d)(9). She agrees that Brooks’s due process claim lacks merit but does not join the Court’s extended procedural due process analysis, concluding that Brooks inadequately presented that claim and that the Court should not have developed arguments not raised by the parties.

Holdings

1. Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 9, section 30.4(d)(9) requires an advance cost deposit for a petition to reinstate a law license, and Brooks was not entitled to avoid that requirement by filing a pauper's oath and indigency affidavit.
2. Brooks's due process claim lacked merit and was inadequately presented because he did not specify whether he asserted substantive or procedural due process and offered only a vague and generalized argument.
3. The Court should not fill gaps in a party's inadequate briefing by undertaking a protracted analysis of issues the party failed to identify and support; its discretion under Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 13(b) to consider unpresented issues should be exercised sparingly.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Brooks was entitled to proceed as a pauper instead of paying the advance cost deposit required for a law-license reinstatement petition.
2. Whether Brooks adequately presented a due process claim based on the required cost deposit.
3. Whether the Court should address an extensive procedural due process analysis when the appellant failed to identify and adequately brief such a claim.

Disposition

dismissed