XIX App. B R. 3 Assignment of Hearing Committee Chairs for Additional Duties

When a lawyer disciplinary case needs certain early actions taken, like handling urgent matters under specific sections of the rules, the disciplinary administrator picks a hearing committee chair to handle them. This chair can't be from the same court circuit where the lawyer being investigated (the respondent) is registered. This keeps some distance between the person handling early procedural steps and the local area where the lawyer practices.

There's also a rule to keep the process fair later on. If a hearing committee chair already handled one of these early duties in a case, that chair's entire committee is barred from later hearing the formal charges in that same case. This means the people who decide the early procedural steps can't also be the ones who judge the actual case once formal charges are filed. It keeps the process separate and avoids any appearance of bias.