Bar Watch attorney held in contempt.

Byline: David Donovan

A Candler attorney engaged in a well-publicized battle with the North Carolina State Bar has been held in contempt of court and sentenced to 48 hours in jail for failing to comply with a court order instructing him to answer questions and hand over documents that the bar is seeking as part of an investigation into his alleged misconduct.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory held the attorney, Alan Phillips, in contempt after a court hearing on May 9, finding that Phillips had willfully failed to comply with the February order.

At the hearing, Phillips contended that the bar's discovery request was "vague and confusing," and that he would do everything he could to provide the bar with the documents it seeks if he could get further clarification.

"I'm not here to argue with anyone," Phillips said. "I am here to do whatever I can to be in compliance. I am not here this morning to hide or conceal or get out of anything."

But Josh Walthall, counsel for the state bar, said that Phillips had given the bar "evasive and incomplete" answers to its interrogatives.

"It is difficult to believe that there was a good faith effort to comply," Walthall told the court.

Phillips is the director of an organization called Bar Watch that works to give wider publicity to his quarrel with the state bar. Most attorneys have likely received emails from the group presenting Phillips's side of the story regarding his case and accusing the bar of misconduct, whereas the bar has largely declined to comment on the dispute.

Phillips has filed ethics grievances against various named and unnamed attorney employees and officers of the bar. According to a letter published on Bar Watch's website, Phillips had alleged that state bar attorneys had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in connection with the bar's grievance committee issuing him a letter of warning.

In previous court proceedings Phillips argued that these grievances created a "conflict of interest" that should preclude the bar from conducting the misconduct investigation against him.

But Superior Court Judge Stephan Futrell, who issued the February order that led to the contempt finding, rejected that argument, writing that a neutral party had investigated Phillips's allegations and found that there was no basis for them.

"Even so, such a...