The U.S. Supreme Court case Goldfarb et ux. v. Virginia State Bar et al., 1974, revolved around the issue of whether minimum fee schedules for lawyers constituted price fixing and thus violated federal antitrust laws. The plaintiffs, Eugene and Bessie Goldfarb, were a couple who sought to buy property in Fairfax County but refused to pay the legal fees set by the local bar association's schedule because they believed it was an illegal restraint on trade under the Sherman Act. The defendants argued that such practices were exempt from antitrust laws due to their status as officers of state courts acting within their official capacities. In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled against this argument stating that there is no blanket exemption for any profession from federal antitrust legislation merely based on its status or classification as a 'learned profession'. It held that minimum fee schedules indeed amounted to price-fixing agreements which are prohibited by law unless they can be justified under Rule of Reason analysis - something not done in this case.

In the dissenting opinion for Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, Justice Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's view that minimum fee schedules constituted price fixing and violated antitrust laws. He argued that such schedules were a form of professional self-regulation rather than commercial activity, thus falling outside the scope of federal antitrust legislation. Furthermore, he contended that these fee schedules served to maintain high standards in legal services by preventing undercutting and ensuring fair compensation for lawyers' work. In his view, this was not an issue of economic competition but one concerning professional ethics and quality control within the legal profession - matters traditionally regulated by states rather than federal authorities.