Kansas Lawyer Exhausts State Appeals of Privilege Tax Suit - Articles

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Kansas Lawyer Exhausts State Appeals of Privilege Tax Suit

Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Apr 7, 2026

Tennessee licensed attorney and TBA member Thomas West, who resides in Kansas, has been pursuing a legal challenge to the state’s professional privilege tax since March 2023, but has decided to drop the effort after exhausting all avenues for state court appeals. His suit was first rejected by a three-judge panel constituted to hear challenges to state laws. West then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. That court considered the matter, hearing oral arguments in August 2025, but in December 2025 rejected the appeal. West then filed permission to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, but in March, the court issued a per curiam order denying the motion. Due to the cost of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court and recently discovering an amicus brief by the U.S. Solicitor General's office arguing that bar admissions fees do not violate the Interstate Commerce clause, West has decided not to pursue his claim further. The amicus brief, filed in American Trucking Associations v. Michigan Public Service Commission stated: "A bar admission fee, for example, confers a privilege that is more valuable to a lawyer who practices exclusively within one State than to an attorney who divides his time between several States … In its so-called ‘peddler" cases,’ [the Supreme] Court has repeatedly sustained, against Commerce Clause challenge, nondiscriminatory state licensing requirements (including flat fees) imposed as a condition of engaging in local business, even when the licensees were also engaged in interstate commerce."

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