Update On Sudden Resignation of Supreme Court Employee

Note:  This story was originally published on December 12, 2024, to this website’s now deactivated Substack account.

NEWS.  Arkansas Business broke a huge story open a few months ago when it attempted to FOIA emails between Justice Courtney Hudson and former director of the Office of Professional Conduct (OPC) Lisa Ballard.

The request was initially met with pushback.  The Supreme Court later ordered their release.  This prompted Justice Hudson to file a lawsuit in the Pulaski County Circuit with Circuit Judge Patty James enjoining the supreme court’s order to release the emails. This, in turn, resulted in the Supreme Court using Amendment 80 to dismiss the circuit court lawsuit and dissolve the injunction.

Then, the Supreme Court referred Justice Hudson to the Judicial Disciple Committee, alleging a breach of ethical standards.  Not to be outdone, Chief Justice Elect Karen Baker referred the rest of the members of the court to the JDC as well in a dissenting opinion.

And this series of events sparked an ultimate kindergarten playground war on the third floor of the supreme court’s “JVSTICE” building where the Supreme Court justices chambers are located that endures to this day.

The emails released between Hudson and Ballard had no juicy details and certainly nothing that would have warranted the massive lockdown attempt of emails. Now, more details have come to light.

According to a recent filing in the Supreme Court in a case involving a disciplined lawyer, the undoing of Ms. Ballard’s tenure at the OPC was brought about in her case.  In Mosemarie Dowd v. Lisa Ballard, Ms. Dowd makes several salacious allegations that Ms. Ballard’s conduct was not in alignment with the high values of the members of the OPC.

Dowd alleges that Ballard lied to a panel of the OPC by telling them a substituted petition was included in the record when it wasn’t.  Dowd said that this substitute petition was crucial to her case.  Later, when Dowd learned that it was not part of the record, Ballard continued to object to prevent it from making the record.

Next, Ballard required an exorbitantly high deposit for a transcript and record of the OPC’s conduct hearing so Dowd could appeal. Dowd alleges the $8000 deposit was designed to chill her ability to appeal, especially since the record only cost half of that to produce.

Getting even better, says Dowd, Ballard refused to take out or refund duplicate sheets in the record Ballard prepared.

Finally, to the shock of everyone, Dowd recounts a story Ballard told to members of the court in which she took a vacation to Hawaii, rented a car, was not supposed to smoke in the car, smoked prolifically in the car, and then bragged about how she bribed an employee of the car rental company to not charge her for smoking in the vehicle.

Shortly thereafter, Dowd says, that Ballard left the OPC and alludes that this was the reason for her departure.

If you want to read the documents, you can find them here.

ANALYSIS.  Lisa Ballard was an interesting choice for director of the OPC.  It was pretty obvious to many in the know that Ballard, Justice Hudson’s divorce attorney, was being installed at the behest of Justice Hudson.  Lisa Ballard has always been a little rough around the edges (not knocking that—it takes one to know one).

The juicy details appear to now have come to light.

As one reader told me, I am “doing pretty good at this ‘journalism thing.’”

Clinton W. Lancaster

Attorney. America First. Sued Hunter Biden for child support. Represented President Trump in the 2020 Wisconsin election challenge. Former attorney for the Wisconsin Special Counsel. An official “Tough Cookie” per President Trump.