TexasBarSunset.com: embezzling at the State Bar of Texas

This page focuses primarily upon what appears to be the most noteworthy embezzlements to have actually been discovered at the Texas Bar thus far. Kathy Holder served as the Bar's membership director. She gradually embezzled well over half a million dollars of dues money (etc.) over the course of nearly a decade before someone turned her in by around May of 2013. How the Texas Bar handled this ongoing theft afterwards is noteworthy and analyzed below. Incidentally the dollar figures on this page are not adjusted for inflation.

Concise media report regarding Kathy Holder's embezzling while at the Texas Bar

Elaborate analysis of how the Texas Bar handled Kathy Holder's embezzling

Why did the State Bar of Texas forget to include any information about that
in its Sunset Review presentation to the state legislature which it submitted
less than 3 years later? The Bar sought a renewal of its 12 year charter
and (among other privileges) the right to increase annual attorney
membership dues whenever and as often as it likes
as well as by however much it likes...

Sunset Review query

FYI:

Budgets at the Texas Bar...

Salaries at the Texas Bar...

Do you agree with how the Texas Bar subsequently did not disclose Ms. Holder's
embezzlements to the state legislature's Sunset Commission when trying to secure its
permission to impose dues increases on the compulsory membership? The Texas Bar
acted this way even after claiming to its attorney members (in writing) that attorney
referendum rights (presumably including those against such dues increases) had already
been preserved during the Sunset Review. For more on the Sunset secrecy and other
Bar irregularities, please read (now former) President Joe Longley's report.

Incidentally, some people suspect that other embezzlements continue to be underway
at the Texas Bar, based in part on data available on our Texas Bar's budgets page.

Meanwhile, isn't it noteworthy how California's bar's prominent embezzler of a decade ago
had to repay what she stole, but Kathy Holder of the Texas Bar essentially did not? Texas
bar members ultimately had to absorb the bulk of the losses because the Texas Bar made its
insuror do so. Might the decisionmakers involved with that have feared that Kathy Holder
could become a snitch against them if they didn't appease her with massive debt forgiveness?

Why doesn't the Texas Bar finally launch an externally operated whistleblower program
that confidentially awards monetary prizes to whomever uncovers fraud, waste & abuse underway
(or previously committed) at (or by) the Texas Bar? For example, where does the Texas Bar's
$55 million dollar annual budget really go? We link to its budget items breakdown here.
Is it not remarkably vague in some areas?

How about money allocated to those entities that are accepting funds from the new Access
to Justice programs? Why do so many people refer to them as slush funds? Might the thirst
for such funds explain why the Texas Bar monopoly is so hostile with its member attorneys?
The ongoing lack of reforms at the Texas Bar speaks volumes, does it not? The Bar's culture
of intimidation is very lucrative for it and its allies. If nobody in the private sector wants to
accept clientele that could successfully lie to the Bar about them later, the purported need for
so-called nonprofit solutions for the resulting inaccessibility to justice appears legitimate.
Follow the money...

Anyhow, please feel free to enjoy this fairly recent report about the SEC's whistleblower program:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/23/business/sec-record-whistleblower-award/index.html

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