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Professional Responsibility Keyed to Gillers
Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar
Citation:
421 U.S. 773 (1975)Facts
Lewis and Ruth Goldfarb were purchasing a home in Fairfax County, Virginia, and needed a title examination, which could only be performed by a member of the Virginia State Bar. The Goldfarbs contacted numerous attorneys, but all quoted the same fee as prescribed in the minimum fee schedule published by the Fairfax County Bar Association. This schedule was enforced by the Virginia State Bar, which considered deviation from the schedule to be evidence of unethical conduct. The Goldfarbs filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the minimum fee schedule constituted price fixing in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The defendants argued that as a learned profession, the practice of law was not “trade or commerce” under the Sherman Act, and that their activities were exempt as state action.
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