[AP] Trial set in misconduct suit against Texas lawyer

LUBBOCK The State Bar of Texas' case against an attorney that it says charged wrongly convicted inmates unreasonable fees for obtaining compensation went to trial Monday, with attorneys giving their opening statements.

Lubbock attorney Kevin Glasheen helped former inmates get state compensation for wrongful incarceration. He has said he acted appropriately in charging his clients a 25 percent contingency fee, meaning he got paid only if they got compensated.

But the state lawyers' association says the fees were illegal and unconscionable and constituted professional misconduct.

Glasheen has been credited by lawmakers and advocates as the driving force behind a 2009 law that made Texas the most generous state in the nation in compensating the wrongly convicted. The law increased compensation from $50,000 to $80,000 for every year of confinement and provided an annuity for lifetime income.

The trial stems from Glasheen's work for Steven Phillips and Patrick Waller. Phillips spent nearly 25 years in prison for a rape and robbery before being cleared, while Waller was freed after serving 16 years for kidnapping and rape. Both were released in 2007.

The two filed complaints with the state bar, which filed its lawsuit after Glasheen asked it to handle the matter in open court, rather than conduct a private evidentiary hearing. The lawsuit was filed in Lubbock County in January 2011, but the state bar asked the Supreme Court of Texas to assign a state judge from another district to handle the case.

If the court determines Glasheen committed misconduct, he could face punishments ranging from a public reprimand to disbarment.

Glasheen said in a statement emailed last week that his firm spent "thousands of hours" and "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to make the state compensation increase happen.

"The basis of the grievance is that the fee is 'unconscionable' because supposedly all we did was file a one-page form for 'automatic' statutory compensation," the statement reads. "We got great results for the clients, more than tripling their compensation."

Phillips, Waller and another former inmate Glasheen did not represent sued him in 2009, contending his work didn't merit the contingency fee. He reached a settlement with them in November, the details of which weren't made public.