N.C. Bar Rejects Request for Employees’ Political Information

The head of the state agency that regulates the practice of law in North Carolina rejected a legislative oversight committee’s request to turn over political information about its 101 employees.

State Bar Executive Director Peter Bolac told Woody White and Larry Shaheen, co-chairs of the State Bar Grievance Review Committee, that the agency does not—and would not—inquire into or maintain records of employees’ political affiliations or contributions.

“Their job responsibilities as civil servants are apolitical,” Bolac wrote in a November 17 letter.

The Bar follows hiring practices laid out in statute requiring all state departments, agencies, and institutions to “select from the pool of the most qualified persons for State government employment without regard to political affiliation or political influence,” he added.

The information requested in White and Shaheen’s November 10 letter, and Bolac’s response, were a source of friction at this year’s first meeting of a committee that drew criticism and scrutiny in 2024. 

The Republican-led General Assembly created the committee in 2023 to review and improve the attorney disciplinary process, in part because of allegations that the public would weaponize the process to file frivolous complaints “to cancel and otherwise curb and influence” an attorney’s free speech rights. White and Shaheen sought to reform how lawyers are disciplined and shield some of those records from the public.

Fifteen lawyers in the General Assembly’s House Democratic caucus issued a statement at the time saying the disciplinary process was meant “to protect the citizens of North Carolina, not to protect lawyers.” Attorneys accused of misconduct are entitled to due process, they added, “but the ultimate results of the process must be transparent to the public.”

At this week’s meeting, the committee co-chairs noted that while some changes to the grievance process have occurred, they still want to pursue whether more information should be kept from the public.

Kevin Williams, a corporate lawyer from Forsyth County, registered Democrat, and president-elect of the Bar, brought up the co-chairs’ request toward the end of Tuesday’s meeting.

“I am a little bit troubled by the letter that was sent to the state Bar asking for political affiliations of state Bar staff and attorneys and the political contributions,” Williams said. “That feels partisan to me. I’m not a politician and don’t want to be a politician. …but I am troubled by it.”

White interrupted, asking Williams if he would be concerned if the data showed 85% or 90% of the staff were affiliated with one party.

Williams responded that he didn’t even think it was legal to ask that question and that in his 10 years serving on the state Bar grievance committee he has never known the political affiliation of any employee.

“To me, it’s not an improper question to just determine a data point to whether or not more or less of the staff may or may not be affiliated with one party versus the other,” White said. “We’ve asked the Bar for that. They’ve made a response. It will be up to the committee about any further inquiry they make.”

Shaheen, an attorney and Republican political consultant, also advocated for gathering the information. “In previous iterations of different administrations there has been significant amounts of time and attention paid to other data points on other demographic factors within all of our professions,” Shaheen said. “They’re called diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

“I personally do not see it as a problem to try to determine whether there’s diversity of thought within our publicly serving members of our publicly mandated state Bar,” Shaheen added.

Another source of friction was the public disclosure of the letter. “That letter was privately transmitted to the Bar,” Shaheen said, and he was surprised when a reporter inquired about Bolac’s response. “So someone—I don’t know who, it wasn’t us—decided to make that an issue today.”

Williams said that he was concerned that the letter had been sent to the Bar as if it were from the full committee when members had neither discussed nor signed off on it: “I think next time maybe clarify that it’s coming from the chairs as opposed to the committee itself.”