---
title: "Candor and the OLPR’s Numbers"
id: "59292"
type: "post"
slug: "candor-and-the-olprs-numbers"
published_at: "2026-07-20T16:05:40+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-07-20T16:26:52+00:00"
url: "https://justice-denied.org/candor-and-the-olprs-numbers/"
markdown_url: "https://justice-denied.org/candor-and-the-olprs-numbers.md"
excerpt: "Table of Contents 20mn read Candor and the OLPR’s Numbers Record Complaints, Serious Candor Violations, and Numbers That Need Clarification The OLPR’s annual report calls candor violations serious. Its numbers also show a discipline system…"
taxonomy_category:
  - "Craig Stevenson"
---
Table of Contents

20mn read

## Candor and the OLPR’s Numbers

*Record Complaints, Serious Candor Violations, and Numbers That Need Clarification*

The OLPR’s annual report calls candor violations serious. Its numbers also show a discipline system under record pressure — while several published figures do not fully reconcile.

The most important candor statement in Minnesota’s latest lawyer-discipline report does not appear in the introduction, the summary, or the section on public discipline.

It appears in a footnote beneath a chart.

Table V of the **[2026 Annual Report of the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board and Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility](https://olpr.mncourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026-LPRB-OLPR-Annual-Report.pdf)** lists the types of misconduct involved in private admonitions issued during 2025. The report then explains:

> “Typically, serious rule violations such as candor to the tribunal or lack of truthfulness would not result in an admonition.”

That sentence deserves attention.

An admonition is reserved by **[Rule 8(d)(2) of the Rules on Lawyers Professional Responsibility](https://www.revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/pr/subtype/rule/id/8/)** for conduct that is “isolated and nonserious.” Yet the OLPR expressly places candor toward the tribunal and lack of truthfulness outside that ordinary category. The two candor violations and three truthfulness-in-statements-to-others violations shown in the admonition chart were exceptions involving lawyers who were already suspended or disbarred. In those circumstances, the report called an admonition the “least inappropriate discipline.”

The regulator’s own description is clear: serious dishonesty is not supposed to be treated as a minor professional lapse.

That principle belongs at the center of [The Candor Files](https://justice-denied.org/the-candor-files/)
.

## Who Is the OLPR?

The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility (OLPR) is an agency of the Minnesota Supreme Court responsible for reviewing complaints of attorney misconduct, investigating allegations, and prosecuting matters that may warrant professional discipline. The Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board (LPRB) helps oversee Minnesota’s lawyer-discipline system, reviews appeals from certain OLPR decisions, and participates in determining whether serious matters should proceed toward public discipline.

Together, the OLPR and LPRB publish an annual report describing the operation of Minnesota’s attorney-discipline system.

## What This Report Covers

The document is titled the **2026 Annual Report**, but most of its statistical information concerns calendar year 2025. It covers the Board’s and Office’s fiscal year from July 2025 through June 2026 and was filed on July 1, 2026.

That timing distinction matters. The report combines completed 2025 statistics with a limited view of the first half of 2026. It is a system report, not a finding about any particular complaint, lawyer, or court case.

Its value is different: it shows how Minnesota’s discipline system describes candor, how the system is handling record demand, and what the public can — and cannot — learn from the published numbers.

## A Discipline System Under Record Pressure

The report identifies complaint volume as the year’s most notable development.

In 2025, the OLPR received **1,572 complaints**, up from **1,278 in 2024** — an increase of approximately **23 percent**. According to the report, no year in the previous 25 years produced more complaints. New complaints during the first half of 2026 were another seven percent higher year over year.

The Office also closed more files than in recent years: **1,491 in 2025**, compared with **1,228 in 2024**. Even so, new matters outpaced closings. The report lists 603 files open at the beginning of 2025 and **681 at year end**.

The age of that inventory also increased. Files at least one year old rose from **218 in December 2024 to 261 in December 2025** — nearly double the 122 reported at the end of 2021.

The local volunteer system is under strain as well. The report says some District Ethics Committees asked periodically for new assignments to stop because workload exceeded volunteer availability. The committees completed 292 investigations in 2025, taking an average of four months for their portion of the process.

These numbers do not establish that any individual complaint was mishandled. They do establish the operating environment: record intake, rising inventory, more aging files, and pressure on the volunteers who perform many preliminary investigations.

For candor matters, that context is important. A responsible candor inquiry is rarely resolved by counting accusations. It may require comparing a filing to the cited authority, a hearing statement to the transcript, a factual representation to the exhibits, or a lawyer’s account to the procedural record. Verification takes time, attention, and access to the underlying materials.

![Candor and the OLPR's Numbers](https://justice-denied.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Candor-and-the-OLPRs-Numbers-Landscape-1024x576.png "Candor and the OLPR’s Numbers 1")**Candor and the OLPR’s Numbers**## A Record Check: Several Numbers Need Clarification

Because **The Candor Files** asks whether public statements match the underlying record, the report’s own arithmetic should be checked too.

The complaint-filings section gives four figures:

- 603 files open at the start of 2025;
- 1,572 complaints received;
- 1,491 files closed; and
- 681 files open at the end of 2025.

Those numbers do not reconcile on their face. Starting with 603, adding 1,572, and subtracting 1,491 produces **684**, not 681. Table IV creates a second discrepancy by listing **604**, rather than 603, as the total open files in December 2024. Using 604 as the starting figure produces 685.

There may be an ordinary administrative explanation — consolidated files, reopened matters, corrections, or a difference between “complaints received” and “files opened.” The report does not provide one. A short reconciliation note would let readers understand what the four figures actually measure.

The appeal table contains another mismatch. It reports 213 determinations and lists 188 approvals of the Director’s disposition. The table assigns that outcome **90 percent**, but 188 divided by 213 is approximately **88.3 percent**, ordinarily rounded to 88 percent. The listed outcome counts add to 213, so the report does not identify a different denominator that would produce 90 percent.

Table VI also reports total dismissals of 79 percent while displaying 62 percent summary dismissals, 17 percent determinations that discipline was not warranted after District Ethics Committee review, and 3 percent Director-level determinations that discipline was not warranted. Those displayed subcategories total 82 percent. If the categories overlap, the table should say so; if they do not, the total needs clarification.

These discrepancies do not establish dishonesty, intentional distortion, or a failure of the discipline system. They establish something narrower: the published numbers cannot all be reconciled from the explanations provided.

That is precisely why record checking matters. An accountability report should make its calculations reproducible, especially when the underlying case files are generally confidential.

## The Filtering Gap

High complaint volume is not the same thing as high misconduct.

The report says a record **62 percent of files were closed without investigation** in 2025 because the complaint did not create a reasonable belief that misconduct may have occurred or because a policy required dismissal. It separately reports that **389 additional submissions** were closed without opening a file after complainants did not answer requests for information. Those 389 were not included in the 1,572 processed complaints.

Table VI reports that, among files closed in 2025:

- 79 percent ended in dismissal;
- 62 percent were summary dismissals;
- 17 percent were closed after a determination that discipline was not warranted following a District Ethics Committee investigation;
- 3 percent were closed after a Director-level determination that discipline was not warranted;
- 6 percent resulted in admonitions;
- 1 percent resulted in private probation; and
- 2 percent resulted in a Minnesota Supreme Court disposition.

These are categories of closed files, not a verdict on the motives or credibility of every complainant. A dismissal may mean the alleged conduct was not an ethics violation, the submission did not provide a reasonable basis for investigation, a procedural policy controlled, or an investigation did not establish grounds for discipline.

That distinction is essential. **An allegation is not a finding. A dismissal, however, is also not a public, record-tested adjudication of every factual dispute raised in a complaint.**

## Appeals Rarely Changed the Result

Minnesota allows a dissatisfied complainant to appeal most dismissals and private-discipline dispositions to a member of the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board.

The Board issued **213 appeal determinations** in 2025, up from 152 in 2024. The outcomes were:

- 188 approvals of the Director’s disposition — reported as 90 percent, although 188 of 213 is approximately 88 percent;
- six directions for further investigation;
- one direction to issue an admonition;
- one new file opened;
- one withdrawn appeal;
- one nonappealable matter; and
- 15 untimely appeals.

The high affirmance rate can be read in more than one way. It may reflect sound initial screening. It may also prompt questions about what evidence is available on review, how disputed facts are assessed, and how much practical separation exists between initial disposition and review.

The annual report alone cannot answer those questions. The review is performed by a Board member rather than the Director, but it remains a review within the lawyer-discipline system. And under **[Rule 20 of the Rules on Lawyers Professional Responsibility](https://www.revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/pr/subtype/rule/id/20/)**, the underlying files and proceedings generally remain confidential unless a stated exception applies.

The public therefore receives aggregate outcomes, but usually not the record needed to evaluate why a particular nonpublic matter was dismissed, affirmed, or privately disciplined.

That is not proof that the outcome was wrong. It is a limit on what the public can independently verify.

## A 34-Year Low in Public Discipline

The report states that **18 lawyers received public discipline in 2025**, down from 27 in 2024. Those 18 included:

- six disbarments;
- eight suspensions; and
- four public reprimands, one of which also included probation.

The **[historical table on page 35](https://olpr.mncourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026-LPRB-OLPR-Annual-Report.pdf#page=35)** makes the figure more significant. The 18 public-discipline dispositions shown for 2025 are the **lowest annual total in the 34-year series displayed in the report**. The previous low in that table was 19 in 2004.

That is a worthwhile accountability marker, but it requires careful interpretation. It counts lawyers who received public discipline during the calendar year. It is not the same as the number of public matters decided by the Court, because public-case activity also includes reinstatements, disability transfers, and other dispositions. It is also not a direct measure of complaints received, misconduct proved, or enforcement effort.

The report cautions that the decline was partly a matter of timing because several matters remained pending at the end of the year. As of June 30, 2026, six lawyers had received public discipline during 2026, while 18 matters were under advisement with the Minnesota Supreme Court, 23 additional public matters were pending, and 11 matters were pending before Board panels. The OLPR’s separate **[review of public discipline in 2025](https://olpr.mncourts.gov/public-discipline-in-2025/)** likewise says that the Court had approximately 17 additional public-discipline matters under advisement at year end.

Timing may therefore explain part of the low figure. But a 34-year low should not disappear into a timing footnote. Future reports should show, for each year, how many public petitions were filed, how many remained pending at each stage, how long they had been pending, and how many resulted in discipline. That would allow the public to distinguish a temporary scheduling effect from a sustained change in enforcement.

The report also records **92 private admonitions involving 243 rule violations** in 2025. But public discipline and admonitions are not directly comparable units: one count concerns lawyers, another concerns dispositions, and the 243 figure counts rule violations within the 92 admonitions.

More importantly for this series, the report does not provide a rule-by-rule table showing how many complaints alleged a Rule 3.3 violation, how many such allegations were investigated, how many were dismissed, or how many contributed to public discipline.

The two candor violations in Table V are therefore not a measure of how often candor concerns were raised. They are only the candor violations contained in that year’s private admonitions — a category the report itself says is ordinarily unsuitable for serious candor misconduct.

## Protection, Deterrence, and Accountability

The Minnesota Supreme Court repeatedly explains that lawyer discipline is not imposed for retribution. In **[In re Gallatin](https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/65f3cf38804cfb1ab71a8059)**, the Court quoted its settled rule that the purpose is:

> “not to punish the attorney but rather to protect the public, to protect the judicial system, and to deter future misconduct”

The Court added that deterrence concerns both the disciplined lawyer and other lawyers. In selecting a sanction, it considers the nature and cumulative weight of the misconduct, harm to the public and profession, and aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

**Justice-Denied questions whether the phrase “not to punish” can sometimes be heard as an argument for leniency when the misconduct is serious or repeated.** Protection and deterrence, however, may require a severe sanction. A suspension or disbarment can protect future clients, preserve confidence in court proceedings, and tell the profession that repeated dishonesty has consequences even though retribution is not the formal purpose.

The better question is therefore not whether discipline should become punishment for its own sake. It is whether the sanction imposed credibly protects the public and the judicial system, deters recurrence, accounts for the harm already done, and becomes more serious when misconduct is repeated.

## Delay Is a Systemwide Question

The report’s 261 files more than a year old measure only part of the delay problem. A matter that may lead to public discipline can pass through screening, a District Ethics Committee or OLPR investigation, Board-panel proceedings, a referee hearing, briefing, oral argument, and Supreme Court deliberation. Time spent after the OLPR files public charges matters to complainants, respondents, courts, and the public just as much as time spent before that filing.

A **[2022 review of Minnesota’s lawyer-discipline system by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professional Regulation](https://olpr.mncourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ABA-Report.pdf)** illustrates the point. Using 2021 data, it reported average total processing times of 24 months for probable-cause determinations, 28 months for referee determinations, and 28 months for disbarment. Those older figures are not a measure of 2025 performance, but they show that delay can accumulate at several levels rather than inside the OLPR alone.

Delay can have many causes: the complexity of the record, unavailable witnesses, legitimate requests for additional time, discovery and motion practice, staffing limits, scheduling before panels or referees, briefing, and judicial deliberation. Respondent conduct can also matter. **[Rule 25 of the Rules on Lawyers Professional Responsibility](https://www.revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/pr/subtype/rule/id/25/)** requires a lawyer under investigation to comply with reasonable requests for documents, explanations, conferences, and hearings. A violation is itself grounds for discipline; a prompt, good-faith challenge made for a substantial purpose other than delay is protected.

The annual report does not say what share of aging cases resulted from noncooperation, repeated extension requests, system capacity, or unavoidable complexity. Without phase-by-phase data, it would be speculation to accuse attorneys generally of stonewalling — or to assume that respondent conduct plays no role.

Streamlining should not mean shortcutting factual review or due process. It should mean enforceable response dates, prompt decisions on extension requests, early identification of serious and repeat-offender matters, automatic review when a file crosses an age threshold, adequate assistance for referees, and public reporting of median time at each stage. Future reports should separately identify time attributable to agreed extensions, contested extensions, noncooperation, inactive holds, panel scheduling, referee proceedings, and Supreme Court consideration.

## Funding and Staffing: Enough for the Work?

The discipline system operates with substantial resources, but a gross dollar figure does not answer whether those resources match the work. A **[publicly available FY2024–25 budget](https://lprb.mncourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/July-28-2023-Meeting-Materials_compressed.pdf#page=61)** projected approximately **$4.82 million in FY2025 expenditures** for the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board and Office, with most of the total devoted to personnel. The system is funded principally through lawyer-registration fees rather than general tax appropriations.

That is considerable funding. It may still be insufficient for record intake, document-intensive investigations, public prosecutions, appeals, advisory opinions, probation supervision, trusteeships, and other duties. The relevant comparison is not the budget in isolation. It is the budget measured against complaint volume, case complexity, required quality, filled and vacant positions, and timely outcomes.

The 2022 ABA review recommended a five-year needs assessment. It also recommended another investigator, possible additional paralegal or administrative support, separate staff support for the Board, and research assistance for referees. The review noted that professional investigators can improve both investigation and trial preparation, and that shifting Board support away from OLPR staff could free resources for investigation and prosecution.

The 2026 annual report does not establish that inadequate funding caused the current backlog. It does provide reasons to test the question rather than assume the answer: record complaints, rising open inventory, more files over one year old, and volunteer committees asking for pauses in new assignments.

A useful public needs assessment would disclose authorized, filled, and vacant positions by function; caseloads per investigator and attorney; turnover and time-to-hire; spending by major function; median case age by stage; and the projected staffing needed to meet published service standards. If more staffing is needed, lawyer-registration fees offer an obvious funding mechanism. If existing resources can be deployed more efficiently, the same analysis should show where.

## The DEC Model Deserves a Performance Test

Minnesota is one of the relatively few jurisdictions that still relies on volunteer District Ethics Committees to investigate a substantial number of complaints. The model offers local knowledge, public participation, and a large pool of donated professional time. It also depends on volunteers fitting investigations around other obligations.

The annual report says the DECs completed 292 investigations in 2025, averaging four months for their portion of the process, while some committees periodically asked that new assignments be suspended because their workload exceeded volunteer availability.

The ABA’s 2022 review did not recommend immediately abolishing the DECs. It recommended retaining them “for now” with greater efficiency and training. But the review also stated the structural concern plainly: volunteers cannot devote the same time and resources to investigations as paid professional disciplinary counsel, and the quality and timing of investigations had varied.

That does not establish that the 2025 DEC investigations were inadequate. It does mean the volunteer model should be evaluated by results rather than tradition alone. The system should publish completion times by committee, reassignment rates, requests for supplemental work, quality-review results, and the age of matters awaiting a volunteer.

A hybrid system may be the best answer: keep trained DEC volunteers for appropriate local fact development, but route serious candor allegations, repeat-offender matters, complex records, and aging files to a regional or statewide team of paid professional investigators. Uniform training, clear referral criteria, a firm target for completion, and automatic reassignment when that target is missed would preserve the value of volunteers without making timely enforcement depend on volunteer capacity.

## Fifty-Five Candor Questions — Not Fifty-Five Violations

The report contains one other Rule 3.3 statistic.

Minnesota lawyers and judges may request confidential advisory opinions from the OLPR about prospective conduct. In 2025, the Office received **1,789 advisory-opinion requests**, up from 1,704 in 2024. Its subject-matter table lists **55 inquiries involving Rule 3.3, Candor Toward the Tribunal**, compared with 53 the prior year.

That figure should not be misused. Advisory opinions address prospective questions. They do not decide complaints about another lawyer, do not establish past misconduct, and are not binding on the Board or the Supreme Court.

The 55 inquiries do show that candor questions arise often enough for lawyers and judges to seek guidance. They do not show 55 violations.

Accuracy requires preserving that distinction.

## What the Report Says About Candor

Minnesota **[Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3](https://www.revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/pr/subtype/cond/id/3.3/)** prohibits a lawyer from knowingly making a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal, failing to correct a prior material false statement, or offering evidence the lawyer knows to be false. In some circumstances, the rule requires remedial measures, including disclosure to the tribunal.

The rule’s comments explain that lawyers are advocates, but also officers of the court. Persuasion is permitted. Knowingly allowing the tribunal to be misled is not.

The annual report adds an enforcement signal to that legal rule. By expressly distinguishing candor and truthfulness violations from the isolated, nonserious conduct normally eligible for admonition, the OLPR acknowledges three important points:

1. Candor protects the decision-making process, not merely the opposing party.
2. Serious dishonesty ordinarily calls for more than the lowest level of private discipline.
3. The sanction category should reflect the nature of the misconduct, not simply the administrative convenience of closing a file.

The report does not say that every disputed statement is a serious candor violation. Neither does **The Candor Files**. Lawyers can make mistakes, argue competing inferences, rely on clients, and take positions that a court ultimately rejects. Rule 3.3 requires careful examination of knowledge, context, the precise statement or evidence at issue, and any applicable duty to correct or take remedial measures.

But once the record supports a knowing and material departure from the truth, the regulator’s own report says the issue is not minor.

## The Questions the Annual Report Leaves Open

For the public to understand how Minnesota enforces candor, future reports could answer several questions without identifying confidential complainants or respondents:

- How many complaints included an allegation under Rule 3.3?
- How many Rule 3.3 allegations were summarily dismissed, investigated, privately disciplined, charged publicly, or carried into a Supreme Court disposition?
- How many alleged failures to correct a prior false statement, as distinct from an initial misstatement?
- What was the median processing time for investigated candor matters?
- How many unresolved candor matters were more than one year old?
- When a matter involved multiple rules, how was candor categorized and counted?
- How much processing time occurred at the OLPR, a DEC, a Board panel, before a referee, and before the Supreme Court?
- How many matters involved overdue responses, contested extensions, or findings of noncooperation?
- How many DEC matters were paused, reassigned, or returned for additional investigation?
- What staffing levels, vacancies, and caseloads existed in each investigative and prosecutorial function?

Aggregate answers would not decide any individual case. They would permit meaningful evaluation of whether a rule described as fundamental is being enforced consistently and promptly.

Transparency is especially important when the underlying nonpublic records cannot be independently reviewed.

## What This Report Does — and Does Not — Prove

The annual report does **not** prove that 1,572 lawyers committed misconduct. It does not prove that every dismissal was correct or incorrect. It does not establish that a particular lawyer violated Rule 3.3, and it does not replace a record-based examination of any disputed statement.

What it does establish is narrower and important:

- Minnesota received a record number of lawyer-discipline complaints in 2025.
- The discipline system’s open and aging caseload increased despite record closings.
- Most closed files ended without discipline, and most appeals left the original disposition in place.
- The 18 lawyers publicly disciplined in 2025 represented the lowest annual total in the report’s 34-year table, although pending matters make timing an important qualification.
- Several headline figures and percentages do not reconcile from the information the report provides.
- Nonpublic outcomes generally cannot be independently tested against the underlying record.
- The report raises legitimate questions about resources, process design, and delay, but does not by itself identify how much each factor contributed.
- The OLPR expressly recognizes that serious candor and truthfulness violations ordinarily should not be resolved as isolated, nonserious misconduct.

Those conclusions are grounded in the regulator’s own report.

## Why This Matters to The Candor Files

The lawyer-discipline process is a backstop. It is not a substitute for accuracy when a court is deciding a motion, evaluating evidence, imposing sanctions, or entering judgment.

By the time a later complaint is screened, investigated, appealed, or resolved, the disputed statement may already have influenced a ruling. It may have been repeated in an order. It may have become part of the procedural history reviewed on appeal.

That is why **The Candor Files** begins with the record itself.

What was said? What did the cited authority, transcript, filing, exhibit, or testimony actually show? What material context was omitted? Did the difference matter to the court’s decision?

The OLPR’s 2026 Annual Report does not answer those questions in any individual case. But it confirms why they matter. Candor toward the tribunal is not a technical preference. It is not ordinary incivility. And, in the regulator’s own words, serious candor or truthfulness violations do not ordinarily belong in the category reserved for isolated and nonserious conduct.

When the integrity of the court’s decision depends on the accuracy of what lawyers say, verification is not hostility to advocacy.

It is protection of the judicial process.

🤖This article was authored by Justice-Denied.org with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

🔗More on Minnesota judicial ethics and court reform: [justice-denied.org](https://justice-denied.org/)