A federal judge on Tuesday disqualified two attorneys from representing plaintiffs challenging Alabama’s ban on transgender care for minors and fined a third lawyer $5,000 for “judge shopping” the case in an attempt to draw a favorable judge.

In March, a three-judge panel determined 11 attorneys judge shopped the case by withdrawing two cases and then filing a third case with different plaintiffs in a different federal court.

The panel found the attorneys maneuvered the cases to avoid U.S. District Court Judge Liles Burke, a federal judge in the Northern District of Alabama appointed by Donald Trump while seeking what they viewed as more sympathetic judges in the Middle District of Alabama.

Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act makes it a felony — punishable by up to 10 years in prison — for doctors to treat people under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm a new gender identity.

The law, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in 2022, is still being challenged on its merits, but the case was put on hold because the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to a similar law out of Tennessee.

Liles handed down punishments to three of the attorneys on Tuesday while choosing not to sanction the eight others.

Carl Charles, an attorney with Lambda Legal, an Atlanta-based organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ people, was fined $5,000 and publicly reprimanded by Burke for testifying falsely during disciplinary hearings and before Burke.

“There is nothing more valuable in the legal profession than one’s reputation, and it is only with great reluctance that the Court would reprimand a young practitioner. But here the Court is left with no choice: after considering the evidence and evaluating Charles’s credibility, the Court finds that his bad-faith misrepresentations were flagrant, intentional, and calculated to mislead,” Burke’s order stated.

“Charles stood before this Court and testified just as he testified before the Panel—with his pants on fire.”

Efforts to reach an attorney representing Charles was not immediately successful.

Melody Eagan and Jeff Doss, attorneys with Birmingham-based Lightfoot, Franklin, & White who were among the lead attorneys in the first lawsuit, “intentionally attempted to manipulate the random case-assignment procedures for the Northern and Middle Districts of Alabama” when they “abruptly dismissed” the initial case and then refiled it, Burke wrote.

“This was not just a strategic litigation decision; it was a calculated effort to subvert the rule of law,” the judge’s order stated.

The judge’s order of public reprimand included barring the lawyers from participating in the case and referring “the matter of their professional misconduct to the Alabama State Bar.

Paula McCauley, a spokeswoman for Lightfoot, Franklin, & White, said the firm is supporting Eagan and Doss.

“We respectfully disagree with the conclusions in the order and are evaluating our options,” McCauley said. “In the meantime, the firm stands by these fine lawyers and appreciates their pro bono efforts in the underlying case.”