The Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed a judgment disciplining a plaintiff’s lawyer for failing to communicate with his client.
Jervan Steven Wiltz v. Commission for Lawyer Discipline (No. 05-25-00994-CV; April 14, 2026) stemmed from a grievance filed by a family member of a deceased construction worker against an attorney they thought they had retained to prosecute their wrongful death suit in 2019. After agreeing to represent the decedent’s widow, Wiltz referred the case to the MAS Law Firm, which filed the suit in October 2019. The following April, the firm withdrew and advised the family that Wiltz still represented them. Wiltz filed a motion to withdraw in October 2021. The trial court granted the motion in December 2021. In January, Wiltz joined the Daspit Law Firm. At that time, the wrongful death suit was pending in a Rockwall County district court. Shortly thereafter, Wiltz emailed the family informing them of his new firm and offering to hook them up with a lawyer at the firm. The family took the offer, and Wiltz sent a case investigator to meet with them. The meeting happened, and the family signed up, establishing an attorney-client relationship.
Confusion broke out. Wiltz didn’t know that the family had retained the firm until it showed up in the firm’s case management system. He emailed the managing attorney about assigning another attorney to the case. That was the first the managing attorney had heard of the case because it didn’t come in under the firm’s protocol, which requires the managing partner or managing attorney to sign off before contracting with a plaintiff. Nothing happened as a result of the email, so Wiltz filed a motion to compel discovery in February 2022. The following month, he abruptly left the firm and didn’t return Daspit’s calls. When the managing attorney reviewed the case, he determined that the firm shouldn’t handle it. He contacted the family, informed them of the firm’s withdrawal, and filed a motion to withdraw along with a motion for continuance. The trial court granted both. He then sent a letter to the family notifying them of the continuance and the need to get a new lawyer. Two months later, the family filed a grievance with the State Bar.
In May 2023, the Commission filed its original disciplinary petition alleging that Wiltz violated Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 1.03(b) (failure to keep client reasonably informed) and 7.01(a) (false or misleading communications about attorney’s qualifications or services). After a bench trial, the trial court determined that Wiltz violated 1.03(b) but not 7.01(a). During the punishment phase, the Commission requested the court to impose a three-year partially probated suspension and attorney’s fees. The court signed a Judgment of Partially Probated Suspension, which imposed a 24-month period of supervision (12 months of active suspension), and awarded $5,000 in attorney’s fees. Wiltz appealed.
In an opinion by Justice Barbare, the court of appeals affirmed. Wiltz contended that since his original client, the decedent’s widow, didn’t testify, the Commission didn’t have a case. “Rule 1.03(b),” the court observed, “requires a lawyer to explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation… According to comment 2, the guiding principle is that the lawyer should reasonably fulfill client expectations for information consistent with the duty to act in the client’s best interests and the client’s overall requirements as to the character of the representation” (citation omitted). Here the trial court heard testimony that the widow signed the contract and became Wiltz’s client. Wiltz admitted that he didn’t have any contact with her during his time at Daspit. “The trial court,” consequently, “could reasonably infer from his admission that he did not communicate with her about his attempts to have another lawyer assigned to the case, his filing of a motion to compel, and his decision to leave Daspit six weeks after joining the firm.” That constituted “more than a scintilla” of evidence supporting the trial court’s finding.
As to Wiltz’s contention that client testimony is required, the court found no case authority for such a proposition. Instead, the trial court was free to believe the Commission’s evidence, instead of Wiltz’s, and Wiltz couldn’t show that he communicated with his client, as opposed to other family members. The court concluded that the trial court’s implied finding was not so contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence that it rendered the judgment “clearly wrong and manifestly unjust.” The court ruled further that the trial court’s judgment of partially probated suspension was likewise justified by the evidence. It didn’t help Wiltz that the Commission introduced evidence that Wiltz had a history of probated and active suspensions for some of the same problems he demonstrated here, including an active suspension from the practice of law from September 1, 2022, to February 29, 2024. Given Wiltz’s history and the trial court’s broad discretion to “determine the consequences of professional misconduct,” the court concluded that it couldn’t find that the trial court abused its discretion.
