When Randy Sorrels, the past president of the State Bar of Texas, posted on Facebook last week the bar leadership’s official denunciation of the current bar president’s comments calling Black Lives Matter “a terrorist group,” Sorrels received three kinds of responses.
Hundreds of Texas Lawyers called President McDougal a racist and demanded his resignation. Scores came to his defense, saying it was a one-time lapse in judgment or that he was correct in his analysis of BLM.
Then there is the third category of Texas lawyers on Facebook.
“Who is Larry McDougal?”
“He’s our state bar president,” Sorrels answered multiple times.
McDougal, a former police officer and prosecutor turned Fort Bend County criminal defense attorney, was sworn in last month as the 92nd president of the Texas Bar Association, which licenses and regulates the 105,000 lawyers practicing in Texas.
In 2019, 24,252 lawyers in Texas voted in the race between McDougal and El Paso Independent School District General Counsel Jeanne Cezanne “Cezy” Collins. He received 52% of the vote.
McDougal promised to spend his year as bar president focusing on mental health and addiction issues within the legal profession, as well as dealing with COVID-19-related legal issues.
But one week ago, McDougal’s agenda was sidetracked when he posted controversial comments on Facebook stating that it is a violation of Texas election law to wear a Black Lives Matter T-shirt into a voting booth.
Within a couple days, other Facebook posts by McDougal surfaced, including one from September 2015 in which he stated that BLM is a terrorist group.
Other state bar leaders immediately denounced the comments, which led McDougal to post a three-minute video on YouTube apologizing and promising to do better.
In the July 2020 issue of the Texas Bar Journal, McDougal is quoted as saying that he became a criminal defense lawyer because most of his clients are good people who made bad decisions.
In an ironic twist, his supporters are now saying the very same thing about him.
But the question for more than 80% of the lawyers practicing in Texas remains: Who is Larry McDougal?
Born and raised in Tyler, McDougal revered his father, a soldier who fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal and other World War II military operations. But his dad didn’t want his son to become a soldier.
So, at age 19, McDougal became a deputy sheriff in 1977 and worked in law enforcement for the next decade. In 1987, he graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Three years later, he received his doctorate in jurisprudence from South Texas College of Law.
After clerking for one year for Houston trial lawyer George Fleming, McDougal joined the Harris County District Attorney’s office as a prosecutor in 1990.
After four years of experience, McDougal opened his own law firm in Richmond practicing criminal defense, personal injury and family law.
“Having been a police officer and Harris County assistant district attorney, the practice of criminal law chose me,” McDougal told the Texas Bar Journal in an interview earlier this year. “Most of my clients are good people who just made a bad decision, and I enjoy helping them get their lives back.”
“I always try to look at things from my client’s perspective,” he said. “When they show up at a criminal defense lawyer’s office, they are usually near hitting rock bottom.”
An airplane pilot and avid hunter and fisherman, McDougal has been involved with the State Bar of Texas for several years, including serving on the board of directors from 2012 to 2015 and with the Texas Bar Foundation for the past five years.
“Giving back is just something my parents engrained in me,” McDougal told the Texas Bar Journal.
In the interview, McDougal said the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping the legal profession.
“We are watching the practice of law change before our very eyes and in ways many of us have never imagined,” he said.
After back-to-back tumultuous State Bar of Texas elections for president in 2017 and 2018 that caused great divides in the legal profession and how it should be governed, Texas lawyers chose McDougal as their bar’s leader in 2020.
“The State Bar of Texas is an excellent organization which I believe is headed in the right direction,” McDougal wrote in his nomination letter. “We don’t need to change it; we need to protect it.”
McDougal’s comments appeared to directly challenge the position of then-Texas Bar President Joe Longley, who claimed that the bar organization was fraught with mismanagement and that mandatory bar dues should not go to supporting specific efforts, such as efforts to promote jury service or pro bono programs for veterans and homelessness.
“When asked what changes I would make to the State Bar, my response is: None,” he wrote.
On June 26, McDougal became the first state bar president sworn in virtually. Then came Friday, July 10, when the Facebook posts surfaced. Other state bar leaders issued their denunciations of McDougal’s comments, but stopped short of demanding he resign. The next day, McDougal took to YouTube.
“I understand that my comments, although not how I intended them, have been hurtful to many members of our bar,” McDougal said. “For that, I am truly sorry. I sincerely regret that my words reflected negatively in anyway on our state bar leadership, its volunteers and staff and to any of you.
“I apologize and I pledge to do better, and I am sincere when I say that,” he continued. “Let me be clear: As a Texas attorney who is sworn to uphold the constitution of this state and the United States, I denounce racism in any and all forms.”
“In 2015 … I did make a comment in an online blog where I referred to Black Lives Matter as a terrorist group. I want to assure you that those comments do not reflect my beliefs today. They changed quite a while back.” McDougal promised to establish a task force to “eradicate social injustice.”
“I apologize and I don’t know what else I can say,” he concluded.