Anne Ashby — Bar Complaint Summary
Anne Ashby (TX Bar No. 15402600) served as arbitrator in a multimillion-dollar attorney fee dispute involving the Allison family estate — then lied to get there.
Under sworn oath, she answered “No” to having any professional or social relationships with parties or witnesses. The truth: she had a 35–40 year relationship with Michael Collins — her personal divorce attorney, her employer post-bankruptcy, and a central figure in the underlying case. Collins himself confirmed the relationship on tape.
When Ashby left the bench in 2009, she filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy wiping out $700K in debt — omitting her income from Collins’s firm, filed under an alias (Anne Duren). That’s a false oath in federal court. Collins financially rescued her. She returned the favor.
Her $132,470 arbitration fee gave her every reason to stay. She did — blocking the Allisons’ expert witnesses while rubber-stamping the lawyers’ legal theories word-for-word, awarding $4M including $600K to an attorney with no written contract, and freezing assets of non-parties never subject to arbitration.
Disbarment basis: Perjury under oath (Rules 4.01, 8.04), evident partiality, exceeded arbitral authority, and a pattern of dishonesty spanning bankruptcy court, arbitration disclosure, and the award itself. She should be held financially liable for the damages flowing from a corrupted proceeding she had a duty to recuse herself from before it began.
