NIMBYs Complained About Me to the State Bar. The State Bar Told Them To Get Lost.

Everyone has the right to tell the government what they think.

Rancho Palos Verdes (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

As you may have heard, thanks to a NIMBY complaint in Southern California, the State Bar of California opened an investigation against me for practicing law without a license. It was an absurd attempt to delegitimize speech clearly protected by the First Amendment.

Now there is good news to share. The State Bar has announced the end of its investigation, clearing me of the complaint. You can read their letter here.

As the agency wrote, “offering her view on state housing laws as an affected California resident and as the organization’s director and the mere use of the word ‘Law’ in the organization’s name does not constitute the unauthorized practice of law in California.”

Several months ago, YIMBY Law, the organization I am the executive director of, sent two letters to the city council of Rancho Palos Verdes, a rich coastal suburb of Los Angeles, telling the council that it had an obligation under state law to approve an upzoning that would lead to 647 more homes — and that if it failed to do so, the city could face a lawsuit.

Thanks to those letters, the council agreed to approve the upzoning. Lobbying cities to live up to their obligations to zone for more housing is the kind of work we do regularly. But this time, NIMBYs tried a new tactic — complaining to the State Bar that by sending the letter I was pretending to be a lawyer.

That sounds silly, but there could have been real consequences. The unauthorized practice of law is a crime, carrying the potential for a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison. Even if an investigation doesn’t go anywhere, there are chilling effects. It costs time and money to deal with it, and it sends a message to other people who are pro-housing — anybody, really — that if someone doesn’t like what they say, they could face a serious complaint. These are important democratic principles worth fighting for. Everyone has the right to tell the government what they think: Me, you, NIMBYs, and YIMBYs. This is so basic I can’t believe we even have to say it. As I said earlier, this is the kind of delegitimization that YIMBYs often face. It’s wrong.

Lucky for us, we were defended by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit, public interest law firm that defends the rights of ordinary people. As their lawyers argued to the State Bar, not only was I not acting like a lawyer in sending those letters, this kind of thing is protected under not one but two clauses of the First Amendment — the right to free speech and the right to petition the government.

Thankfully, the State Bar agreed:

“Throughout our investigation, there was no evidence obtained that showed [Trauss] represented clients, advertised legal services, provided legal services or advice, held out as an attorney, or otherwise engaged in the unauthorized practice of law,” the association’s investigator wrote in a letter to the attorney who filed the complaint.

In a perfect world, the State Bar never would have even opened an investigation. But I’m grateful that once they did, they quickly came to their senses. Now we have two victories in Rancho Palos Verdes — not only the one that approved new housing, but also one that vindicates the First Amendment rights of everyone to speak their minds.