McAllen attorney elected to lead state bar's board
A McAllen attorney will become the first local lawyer to lead the State Bar of Texas’ board of directors in more than half a century.
The board’s members elected Pablo Javier Almaguer — who works for non-profit Texas RioGrande Legal Aid — to helm the panel earlier this month. The body last elected a Rio Grande Valley lawyer as its president in 1954, when it selected Vernon Hill, of Mission.
"Locally, it means a lot the Valley," said Almaguer, 38. "Personally, it’s a great honor."
When he begins his one-year term in June, Almaguer will also hold the distinction of becoming the first attorney specializing in low-income legal services ever to hold the post — a significant accomplishment in a statewide organization historically been dominated by lawyers from high-profile metropolitan law firms or those in private practice operating in rural parts of the state, said TRLA Executive Director David Hall.
Legal Aid offers free representation in litigation affecting seasonal migrant workers, domestic abuse victims, colonia residents out of branch offices across south Texas including ones in Weslaco, Edinburg and Harlingen.
But when Hall first began practicing law in Texas amid the United Farm Workers movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s, few in the legal community supported providing free legal representation to the poor, he said.
Attorneys across the state feared such services could cut into their profits and threaten the interests of their clients by allowing farm workers to file lawsuits against their corporate employers.
"The organized bar was generally very hostile to the representation of poor people for free," he said. "The local bar association came out against it in a big way."
In the last decade, however, low-income legal services attorneys have become a growing voice within the state bar. The organization has recently created a section of its membership devoted to poverty law.
"It’s just been a sea change over the years," Hall said. "You have a different breed of folks coming out of law school now that have been instilled with need — as a profession — to provide services for the poor."
But Almaguer said he doesn’t want to just be known for coming from a poverty law background. A past president of the Hidalgo County Bar Association, he has previously worked as the branch manager for TRLA’s Edinburg office and now coordinates recruitment of private attorneys for pro bono work for the organization. Those positions have helped him forge relationships with attorneys working in the private sector.
As the state bar’s board president, he will have the opportunity to shape debate on issues such as disciplinary rules, tort reform or managing funding provided by the state Legislature.
Most recently, the board recommended almost unanimously to the state’s high court to reject a proposal that would force lawyers to disclose whether they had malpractice insurance. During Almaguer’s tenure, it is expected to undertake its first review of the rules governing attorney conduct in the last decade.
"We can’t lobby under state rules," he said. "But we can educate lawmakers and the public and provide some input."
