182 Iowa 366 | Iowa | 1918
“That said original decree of disbarment be and the same is hereby set aside and annulled,” and “that if, in the future, the defendant desires to be reinstated in the practice of law within the state of Iowa, said reinstatement shall be subject to the further orders of this court, upon application and notice to be presented by the defendant in person.”
The plaintiff thought it was necessary to obtain some change of this order of modification, to meet the rules concerning admission of attorneys within the state of California, wherein he had passed the bar examination, and was seeking admission. To obtain a second modification, he presented to one of the defendants an order to be signed, wherein he treated the second application as an effort to obtain a modification of .the original decree of disbarment. This original decree was an absolute disbarment, disqualifying the plaintiff from practicing law anywhere. It will help to a clear understanding of what is now before us to display, side by side, the modification entered on July 13, 1915,
“That said original decree of disbarment be and the same is hereby set aside and annulled. * * *
“If, in the future, the defendant desires to be reinstated in the practice of law within the state of Iowa, said reinstatement shall be subject to the further orders of this court, upon application and notice to be presented by the defendant in person.”
“That the said original decree' entered in this case, by the terms of which the said defendant was disbaried as a practicing attorney in this court, be and the same is hereby set aside and annulled.”
And that “the matter of defendant’s re-entering the practice of law in Iowa be left open for his personal application and -appearance.”
It is most difficult to find any substantial difference between what is sought in the last application and the modification already obtained. It seems to us that the second application merely asked an immaterial change in the entry which had already modified the original decree of disbarment. It is true the plaintiff seemed to think that he could have no modification of the modification without applying to have the original decree modified. The most that this worked is that he made application to have a change made in the original decree as already amended. No matter what he thought, if he asked a change at all, it is the one embodied in that prayer he made for the second change, which we have already set forth. The defendants neither granted nor denied this second application. Instead, they decreed, Avithout further notice or appearance by plaintiff, “that tlie order entered in this court in-the above cause on duly 13, 1915, be vacated and set aside,” and that “the original order, as made under date of February 10, 1912, be re-established as