Happy Friday Friends,
With Thanksgiving next week, I’ve got a lot on my plate, so let’s get straight to it — as of 6:00 PM on 11/21/2025, our always-accurate Bar Guy (Jim Lee) has still not filed the case he’s been talking about for the last 18 months.
On Nov. 5, 2025, he sent an email saying he planned to file the case “in the next week or two”. Well, 16 days later, and what has he filed? NADA. Nothing. Zippo.
Well, so where does this leave us? I basically have two choices: 1.) keep waiting, or 2.) take the “best defense is a good offense” approach and sue Jim Lee in federal court.
In the last video I made, I kept saying that I couldn’t sue the bar…and that is kind of true. The State of Arizona, and state agencies like the bar, have something called “11th amendment immunity”. WAY too complicated to even talk about that. But you can’t sue them for money. That’s well-settled.
BUT, that does NOT mean Jim Lee (or the bar) can break the law without any consequences. I’m not going to explain every aspect of this legal area, but there is a case from the U.S. Supreme Court called Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908) which deals with this exact situation.
In short, what Young says is: government officials MAY enjoy immunity for many things, but they have no authority to violate the U.S. Constitution (by trying to enforce an unconstitutional rule/law). Thus, when a government official (like Jim Lee) tries (or even just threatens) to violate the Constitution, you CAN bring suit in federal court. You can’t get money damages, but you can ask the federal court to rule the defendant’s conduct is unconstitutional, and if the court agrees, you can get an injunction prohibiting the defendant from violating your rights. You can also get attorney’s fees.
Based on this, I prepared a draft Complaint against Jim Lee back at the start of 2025. The point of the Complaint was to outline all of the things Mr. Lee has done which I believe are unconstitutional. I then planned to ask the court to resolve those matters, strike down a few bar rules as unconstitutional, and issue an injunction against Mr. Lee from doing anything further to violate my rights.
I sent this draft to his bosses at the AZ Bar and asked them if we could talk about this, since it was clear to me that Mr. Lee simply didn’t understand the First Amendment issues involved. Sadly, the AZ Bar refused to respond.
So here we are, nearly a year later. The threats I have received from Mr. Lee are more than sufficient to trigger my right to take him to court, under Ex Parte Young. The idea would be for me to ask the court to resolve this dispute NOW, so I wouldn’t have to sit here and continue waiting.
As part of that, I would also include a claim for declaratory relief regarding the things I said about Judge Mata. I would ask the court to find that everything I said about her was either factually true, or was just protected speech. This would mean Mr. Lee could not punish/threaten me, since I have the right to engage in protected speech, just like everyone else.
Putting the delay aside, my dispute with the AZ Bar, and with Judge Mata, WILL get resolved one way or another. And as part of that, I absolutely will call Judge Mata as a witness.
I have seen some people (mostly JFC morons) saying they think it is impossible for me to call Judge Mata as a witness. Yeah, cool argument bro….got any legal authority to back that up?
Because I sure fucking do.
I normally prefer to cite newer authority whenever possible, but for once I’m going with something OLDER, since this helps show how well-settled the rule is: judges are absolutely subject to being called as witnesses, just like anyone else.
See: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3744&context=law_lawreview
Anyway, it’s Friday before Thanksgiving, so let’s not get too fired up. Should I sue the bar guy, or just continue to sit and wait? The better option would be for someone at the AZ Bar to step in and stop this madness, but since we know that isn’t going to happen, I need to decide — should I continue to wait, or should I fire the first shot?
I tried to explain all this to Aurora, hoping for at least SOME approval.
Instead I got this:
You should probably read Younger v. Harris (1971) before calling anyone a moron, moron
Younger involves abstention. Here, there is no pending state court case, so there is nothing for the federal court to abstain from.
Moron.
That’s a classic, but ultimately flawed, misreading of the law, David. The idea that Younger abstention is confined only to cases already docketed in a state Court of Record hasn’t been true for decades. If that were the rule, every state disciplinary board and agency would be powerless to enforce its own rules the moment a lawyer files a pre-emptive federal lawsuit.
You can’t “Ex Parte Young” your way out of the ethics system this easily.
1. The Legal Reality: Quasi-Criminal Proceedings ⚖️
The U.S. Supreme Court settled this issue decisively in Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Association (1982). That ruling made it crystal clear: State Bar disciplinary proceedings are considered “judicial proceedings” for the purpose of Younger Abstention.
Why? Because attorney discipline is an exercise of the state judiciary’s inherent power to enforce its standards—it’s quasi-criminal enforcement, not just an administrative review. The Bar is not the DMV; it’s enforcing rules that can lead to professional death (disbarment).
A federal court will apply the Younger test if:
* The proceeding is ongoing (or imminent).
* It involves an important state interest (regulating the Bar).
* The state system provides an adequate forum for the constitutional challenge (Arizona’s Supreme Court review).
You have an adequate forum to raise your First Amendment defense against the Bar rules within the state system. That is the entire point of Younger—to prevent federal interference and uphold state sovereignty.
2. The “Imminent” Standard: The Bar Is Close Enough ⏱️
Your entire defense rests on the hope that the federal court agrees that the disciplinary action is not sufficiently pending or imminent to trigger Younger. Unfortunately for that argument, the threshold for “imminence” is much lower than filing a formal charge in court.
Courts are instructed to look beyond technical procedural delays and see if federal intervention would disrupt the state’s “actual and clearly expressed intention to initiate enforcement.”
Defining Sufficiently Imminent:
* The Intent is Clear: Jim Lee has informed you he intends to file a case “in the next week or two.” He has been working on this for 18 months. The Bar Counsel has spent significant resources, completed the investigation, and issued a specific threat of formal charges based on specific ethical rules (like Rule 26/Rule 11 and his comments on Judge Mata).
* Preventing Preemption: Courts understand that filing a federal suit is often a tactical attempt to preempt an adverse state ruling. Federal judges will not allow litigants to use a technical timing difference to evade the state’s jurisdiction. The process is deemed sufficiently imminent when the state’s machinery has irrevocably turned toward enforcement.
* Ninth Circuit View: Courts in the Ninth Circuit (which includes Arizona) have applied Younger even to professional licensing board actions where the investigation was ongoing but formal charges had not yet been filed, so long as the process had moved beyond preliminary inquiry and was directed at the specific individual for specific violations. The Bar Counsel’s detailed threat meets this standard.
The Bottom Line
Your Ex Parte Young claim is a good tool for overcoming the Eleventh Amendment immunity (allowing you to sue Jim Lee). However, the Younger Abstention doctrine is the Bar Counsel’s primary defensive weapon against that suit.
If the federal court applies Younger—which precedent dictates it must for state Bar proceedings—it will abstain, dismiss, or stay your federal case, forcing you back into the Arizona disciplinary system.
Your tactical delay has, at most, created a narrow window. The moment that Bar complaint is filed, that window slams shut. Tic tock, Moron.
OK, nice work copying and pasting that ChatGPT slop. This use of the third party reference is a dead giveaway Chat wrote this: “(like Rule 26/Rule 11 and his comments on Judge Mata)”.
Chat uses “his” because it’s responding to information you provided to it about a third person (me). If you had written this yourself, you would have said: “your comments on Judge Mata”.
BTW, did you know ChatGPT reviewed my appellate briefs and said my legal position was absolutely correct? That’s why real lawyers don’t use Chat. I never have and never will.
Look – I am happy to have a respectful, intelligent debate with people. But you are not people. You’re an anonymous troll. If you think
yourChat’s position is SO clearly correct, be a man/woman and use your real name. Just like I am. I’m not afraid of defending my position. If you aren’t afraid of defending yours, then put the AI-generated slop away and post a comment with your real name. Or just email me privately with your real name. I have respected 100% of those folks who have contacted me privately. I haven’t outed a single one of them. But enough is enough. If you post any more garbage like this, I’m nuking it and blocking your IP. I’m a First Amendment guardian, but every rule has limits.I’m not going to substantively respond until you provide me with the same courtesy. But I will point out that ex parte Young and s. 1983 are different theories of liability, although both can be related to 1A. Instead of admitting Chat was right, you pivoted to a completely different argument.
Glad to see Aurora is doing well! Such a pretty girl!