Accusations that she does not meet the legal requirements to be elected a circuit judge are baseless and her opponents have no legal grounds to challenge her candidacy, a judicial candidate said in court filings Thursday.
Valerie Thompson Bailey, who is opposing incumbent Judge Tim Fox in the May election for the 6th Judicial Circuit of Perry and Pulaski counties, asserted her credentials are bona fide in a Thursday court filing. The filing is in response to a lawsuit that contends she doesn’t meet the legal qualifications for the position.
A hearing has not been scheduled. Three of Fox’s fellow judges have recused from hearing the case.
At issue is a state constitutional requirement, enacted in 2000, that judges must be licensed attorneys for at least six years before taking office.
Bailey, 40, was licensed in 1999, but she accepted an administrative suspension when she left private practice, lived out of state for a time and raised her two children from 2002 until 2011, when her license was reinstated. She currently is a lawyer for the Arkansas Department of Education.
The lawsuit claims the constitutional requirement and judicial rules require that to be a legitimate candidate, she should have had her license reinstated in 2009 - six years before the next judicial term starts in 2015. Fox, 56, was licensed in 1981 and elected in 2002.
But in her response, Bailey argues the plaintiff, Kristen Hulse, who says she does not know Fox, misstates the law.
“A loss of license only comes about with a disbarment or surrender of one’s license to practice law,” according to the pleading by Bailey’s attorney, Nicki Nicolo.
An attorney whose license is suspended for misconduct would be ineligible for the office, but an administrative suspension is not the same thing, the filing states.
“Petitioner has put forth no case law, rule or statute that supports the proposition that an administrative suspension of a license to practice law constitutes a loss of the license,” the eight-page filing states. “An administrative suspension does not amount to a loss of one’s license and, therefore Bailey was, in fact, ‘licensed’ as required.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/14/2014