Reporting a Lawyer Is Protected. Is Filing a False Report Protected Too?

The system that holds lawyers accountable only works if people are willing to report. Clients, opposing parties, other lawyers — somebody has to be willing to pick up the phone. And few will do that if reporting might get them sued.

So Arizona protects it. Communications to the State Bar about lawyer misconduct or the unauthorized practice of law are absolutely privileged.

Now push on it. What if someone files a charge they know is baseless, purely to hurt you? A charge can cost you a job before anyone determines it was false. Does the protection cover that too?

On September 10, 2026, a divided Arizona Supreme Court answered — and the answer rests on a distinction that is easy to miss: the difference between a privilege and an immunity.

How the dispute arose

Because this case was decided on a motion to dismiss, the court assumed the facts alleged in the complaint were true. They are allegations, and this article describes them that way.

An attorney licensed in New York and Washington, D.C. was working on an Arizona matter alongside Arizona co-counsel — an arrangement the ethical rules permit in defined circumstances. During the dispute, he told opposing counsel that his firm's representation appeared to create a conflict of interest. He later contacted the State Bar, discussed that concern, and filed a charge.

He then told opposing counsel he had done so. Immediately afterward, according to the complaint, opposing counsel filed a charge against him, alleging he was practicing law in Arizona without authorization.

The Bar opened a screening investigation. He was told his participation was extremely important, that he had a duty to cooperate, and that failing to respond was itself grounds for discipline. He responded, and the material was sensitive enough that a protective order was obtained.

While the charge was pending, a law firm that had offered him a job learned of it and rescinded the offer. The Bar eventually dismissed the charge. The firm did not reinstate the offer, and he later took a lower-paying position.

He sued, claiming wrongful institution of civil proceedings — a tort that compensates someone harmed by a proceeding brought maliciously and without probable cause. The trial court dismissed. The court of appeals revived the claims. The Supreme Court took the case.

Is a Bar charge a "civil proceeding"?

The tort requires a civil proceeding the defendant instituted. So the threshold question was whether filing a Bar charge starts one.

The majority held it can — and the reasoning is about substance rather than labels. What follows a charge is not an informal inquiry. It runs through defined rules adopted by the Supreme Court itself, and before any formal complaint is ever filed it can require the person to produce information, documents, and deposition testimony; it can produce investigative subpoenas; failure to comply can lead to civil contempt proceedings and sanctions up to summary suspension from practice; and it can end in agreed discipline, restitution to people financially injured, civil penalties, or disbarment.

Those are, as the majority put it, hallmarks of a lawsuit: compulsory process, consequences for not participating, subpoenas, depositions, sanctions, monetary obligations, and orders aimed at compensating injured people. The rules themselves even use the word "civil" at the charge stage.

The defendants compared a Bar charge to a police report, where a prosecutor decides what happens next. The majority rejected the comparison: the subject of a police investigation has no obligation to cooperate similar to the one the Bar rules impose, and none of the sanctions that follow from declining to respond to a charge.

Two justices disagreed with this entirely, and their position is not a technicality. A rule of the Supreme Court states that discipline proceedings are "neither civil nor criminal, but are sui generis" — a thing of their own kind. On the dissent's reading, that language means a Bar proceeding can never be the civil proceeding this tort requires. The majority answered that the rule does not say a discipline proceeding may never count for a collateral purpose, and read the phrase in the context of the surrounding provisions, which adopt civil procedure and evidence rules and set standards of proof.

Privilege is not immunity

This is the heart of the case.

The rules say communications to the State Bar and testimony given in proceedings are absolutely privileged, and that no civil action predicated on them may be brought against a complainant or witness. A second sentence then says a list of people — Bar staff, board members, the presiding disciplinary judge, and others — shall be immune from suit.

The majority found the drafting decisive. The first sentence uses "privileged" and applies to complainants. The second uses "immune from suit" and does not include complainants in its list. When different terms appear in the same provision, courts presume they mean different things.

And the difference is real. A privilege protects the content of particular communications — those statements cannot be used to support a civil claim. An immunity bars the claim itself, whatever the evidence. The majority pointed out that if the litigation privilege barred everything, this tort could not exist at all, since anyone who started a civil proceeding would be absolutely immune.

The rules also never mention the act of filing. They privilege communications and testimony. So the statements in a charge cannot be used against the complainant — but the act of filing is not itself immunized.

This is not unfamiliar territory. Courts routinely separate what was said from the surrounding facts. With attorney-client privilege, the communication is protected but the fact that a person consulted a lawyer, and when, generally is not.

What a plaintiff would actually have to work with

Having drawn that line, the majority described what evidence remains available: the complainant's non-privileged communications, the fact and timing of the filing, what the complainant knew and reviewed before filing, motivation, surrounding events and circumstances, inconsistencies, the respondent's conduct, and the outcome of the charge.

And it drew the limit just as clearly. If a plaintiff can only support an element of the claim with privileged statements from the charge, the claim is barred. In that situation, the majority acknowledged, the complainant is effectively immune.

Whether this particular plaintiff can prove his case without touching the privileged material was not before the Court. It goes back to the trial court. The majority's own assessment was candid: "This may be a heavy lift."

When does the proceeding begin?

Because the timing matters to the claim, the Court also decided when the proceeding starts — and the answer depends on the type of charge.

For a charge alleging an Arizona lawyer violated the ethical rules, a proceeding exists once the charge is filed. What makes it a civil proceeding for purposes of this tort is the point at which the lawyer receives written notice of a screening investigation and is required to respond to the allegations — that is when the obligations the majority relied on attach.

For a charge alleging the unauthorized practice of law, a rule supplies the answer directly: the proceeding commences when the State Bar receives the charge.

The Court concluded a proceeding had commenced here under either route.

The chilling-effect problem

The defendants argued that allowing these claims will discourage people from reporting misconduct. The dissent shares that concern.

The majority's answer was that the elements do the protective work. A claim cannot rest on a charge that was merely imprudent, mistaken, or even wrong. A plaintiff must prove malice, lack of probable cause, that the proceeding ended in his favor, and damages. A charge that is dismissed is not thereby a wrongful one.

The majority also framed the two interests as coexisting rather than competing: the privilege exists so people can communicate freely with the Bar about possible wrongdoing, and this tort exists for wrongfully weaponizing that process. Under the dissent's reading, it said, someone who files a knowingly fabricated, retaliatory charge would receive complete immunity.

What the Court did not decide

The Court vacated the court of appeals' decision — agreeing with its result but replacing its reasoning — and reversed the trial court's dismissal, sending the claims back for further proceedings.

It did not find that anyone acted maliciously, that any charge was baseless, or that anyone owes anything. Reversing a dismissal means a claim may proceed past the pleading stage. It resolves nothing about whether the allegations are true.

What does this decision teach us?

• Reporting protections remain strong. What you say to the State Bar is absolutely privileged and cannot be used to support a civil claim against you.
• Privilege and immunity do different jobs. Under this ruling, the rules protect the content of communications; they do not shield the act of filing a charge from every possible claim.
• A dismissed charge is not a wrongful charge. The tort requires malice, absence of probable cause, favorable termination, and damages — a mistaken or unsuccessful charge does not satisfy that.
• The evidence available shapes the case. A claim must be built from non-privileged material; one that depends on the privileged contents of the charge fails.
• Timing depends on the type of charge. An ethics charge becomes a civil proceeding for purposes of this tort when the lawyer receives written notice of a screening investigation and must respond; an unauthorized-practice proceeding commences when the Bar receives the charge.
• The Court was split. Two justices would have held that a discipline proceeding can never serve as the predicate, and that the rules protect the act of filing itself.