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Civil Procedure

BigLaw attorneys who are ‘frequent practitioners’ in federal district can’t be admitted pro hac vice, judge says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 5, 2025, 3:45 pm CST

Two Baker & Hostetler lawyers won’t be able to represent a compounding pharmacy in a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, at least for now, after a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas denied their application to appear pro hac vice.

Partner Andrew M. Grossman and associate Marc N. Wagner cannot be admitted pro hac vice because they are “frequent practitioners” in cases filed in the Northern District of Texas, said U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman of the Northern District of Texas in a March 3 order.

Law360 covered the decision, noting that pro hac vice motions “are common and usually regarded as an afterthought. They are rarely denied.”

A pro hac vice admission means that a lawyer has been admitted to practice in a jurisdiction in only one particular case, Pittman said. In the past year, however, Grossman submitted three such applications, while Wagner submitted four of them in the Northern District of Texas, including the applications in the case before Pittman.

The lawyers, Pittman said, are encouraged “to file applications to be admitted to practice in this court, and [this court] would happily welcome them as members of the bar.”

Grossman is licensed in Washington, D.C., and admitted to practice before nearly every federal appeals court. Wagner is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

Wagner and Grossman did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal email seeking comment. They are among six Baker & Hostetler lawyers who signed the Feb. 24 suit and among four who planned to seek pro hac vice admission in the case.

The suit challenges an FDA decision to remove the weight loss drug semaglutide from a shortage list, which meant that compounding pharmacies were no longer allowed to help satisfy demand. The plaintiffs in the suit are a compounding pharmacy and a trade association that represents compounding facilities.

Pittman appears to be a stickler for the rules. He previously dismissed a suit because of a missed deadline to file a certificate of interested persons and sanctioned two lawyers in a different suit for submitting declarations instead of notarized affidavits as he had directed.

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