State Bar of California
The State Bar of California is an administrative division of the Supreme Court of California which licenses attorneys and regulates the practice of law in California. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate discipline, accepting attorney-member fees, and financially distributing sums paid through attorney trust accounts to fund nonprofit legal entities. It is directly responsible to the Supreme Court of California. Its trustees are appointed by the Supreme Court, the California Legislature, and Governor of California. All attorney admissions are issued as recommendations of the State Bar, which are then routinely ratified by the Supreme Court. Attorney discipline is handled by the State Bar Office of Chief Trial Counsel, which acts as prosecutor before the State Bar Court of California. The State Bar has been cited for its corrupt practices during the 21st century, and is subject to reforms issued by its governing body, the California Supreme Court.
The State Bar was legally established on July 29, 1927, when the State Bar Act went into effect. The State Bar of California is the largest in the United States, with over 286,000 living members as of December 2022, of whom nearly 197,000 are on active status. It is headquartered in San Francisco, with a branch office in Los Angeles.
At its inception, the State Bar was a "unified" bar in which disciplinary functions and more traditional "bar association" functions were joined into one entity. In 2018–2019, the State Bar was split into two entities: the State Bar of California became a standalone Government entity with legal enforcement via the State Bar Court.
The new entity split off from the State Bar of California became the California Lawyers Association and took over certain functions such as education, lobbying, and annual meetings. Membership in the CLA is voluntary. Membership in the State Bar of California is mandatory for most practicing lawyers in California. The CLA is an NGO.
History
The State Bar's predecessor was a voluntary state bar association known as the California Bar Association. The leader of the effort to establish an integrated bar was Judge Jeremiah F. Sullivan, who first proposed the concept at the California Bar Association's Santa Barbara convention in September 1917, and provided the California Bar Association with a copy of a Quebec statute as a model.It took almost ten years to establish an integrated bar in California. Sullivan, who was also the President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, organized BASF committees to draft and propose appropriate legislation. Both BASF-drafted bills died in the California Legislature, in 1919 and 1921. In 1922, Sullivan finally persuaded the CBA to take action on his proposal; the California Bar Association drafted a new bill, lobbied lawyers and legislators around the state for their support, and persuaded the Legislature to pass the bill in 1925. That bill died by Governor Friend Richardson's pocket veto.
After two more years of lobbying, the CBA tried again. Governor C. C. Young signed the State Bar Act into law on March 16, 1927. On May 12, 1927, the Supreme Court of California appointed the State Bar Commission, which in turn established the State Bar of California as an operating entity with offices at 519 California Street in San Francisco on July 30, 1927. The State Bar immediately mailed out registration forms to all California attorneys. Identification numbers were assigned to each attorney as they registered; notably, State Bar Number 1 went to Chief Justice William H. Waste.
By October 1, 1927, 7,872 lawyers had registered. These lawyers then voted by mail for the State Bar's first Board of Governors. On November 17, the State Bar held a preorganization dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, followed by the formal organization meeting the next day. By the time the dinner started, 9,602 lawyers had registered. The next morning, during the State Bar's organization meeting, the CBA yielded to its successor by winding up its affairs and ending its corporate existence.
Integrated bar
In 2018–2019, California joined the majority of American states that operate an integrated bar, in which the statewide bar association is integrated with the judiciary and active membership therein is required in order to practice law. Article 6, Section 9 of the California Constitution states:The State Bar acts as the administrative arm of the California Supreme Court in matters involving the admission, regulation, and discipline of attorneys. Its structure, responsibilities and powers are elaborated in the State Bar Act, Sections 6000–6238 of the Business and Professions Code, as well as its own Rules of the State Bar of California and certain portions of the California Rules of Court.
Generally, practicing law in the state of California without being a licensee of the State Bar is the crime of unauthorized practice of law. There are limited exceptions such as for patent attorneys who restrict their practice to the prosecution of patent applications ; attorneys who practice areas of law exclusively regulated by the federal government under a United States Supreme Court decision in 1963 that prohibited states from restricting the practice of exclusively federal areas of law; and attorneys from other states who have applied to the California courts for temporary admission pro hac vice to work on a single California case in collaboration with a licensee of the State Bar. Other exceptions include provisions for members of the military stationed with their spouses in California, registered in-house counsel, and registered legal aid attorneys.
Notably, the State Bar's board of trustees is no longer elected by the state's attorneys. Instead, the trustees are now appointed by the Supreme Court of California, the Governor of California and members of the California Legislature.
Divestment of voluntary bar functions
On October 2, 2017, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 36. SB 36, sponsored by Hannah-Beth Jackson which mandated the separation of the sections of the State Bar into a new 501 entity. This Association was designed to house the 16 sections of the State Bar of California, as well as the California Young Lawyers Association. The sections provide low-cost continuing education for attorneys, which the State Bar of California requires. The sections also work with legislators to interpret, amend, and propose legislation. While lawyers are required to pay dues to the State Bar of California to practice law in the state, membership within the sections is voluntary. SB 36 helped formalize the separation, reauthorized mandatory dues for two years, and reduced the number of lawyers on the State Bar of California's board of trustees. The separation became official on January 1, 2018, with the launch of the California Lawyers Association.The State Bar of California no longer performs educational or lobbying functions. Instead, its statutory mission involves activities to protect the public, increase access to legal services, and increase diversity in the legal profession. It administers the biannual bar examination for law students, processes complaints about attorney misconduct and the unauthorized practice of law, disciplines attorneys, and works with the California Supreme Court to consider and draft the Rules of Professional Conduct by which all California lawyers must conduct themselves. It collects and distributes legal aid funds and conducts an attorney census to publish demographics reports. It collects and maintains attorney records and collects licensing fees, and conducts limited services for licensees related to its current mission.
Membership
Fee structure
The State Bar of California is one of a small number of State Bars whose member fee structure must be ratified annually by both the legislature and the governor. Without such annual reauthorization, it can charge California lawyers only $77 per year.In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Keller v. State Bar of California that attorneys who are required to be members of a state bar association have a First Amendment right to refrain from subsidizing the organization's political or ideological activities as was the case with the California State Bar's activities.
In October 1997, Governor Pete Wilson vetoed the fee authorization bill for that year. He pointed out that California's bar had the highest annual fee in the country at $478. He also stated that the State Bar had become bloated and inefficient and criticized its Conference of Delegates for taking positions on divisive political issues like abortion. The State Bar's political and lobbying activities, combined with the compulsory nature of its dues, had already resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the State Bar was forced to allow attorneys to opt out of paying dues to support positions that they found abhorrent, Keller v. State Bar of California,.
As a result, the State Bar was forced to lay off 500 of its 700 personnel on June 26, 1998. For six months, the State Bar's attorney disciplinary system was nonfunctional. On December 3, 1998, the Supreme Court of California unanimously held that it had the power to impose an emergency annual fee of $171.44 on all California lawyers to fund the attorney disciplinary system. See In re Attorney Disciplinary System, . By then, the backlog of unprocessed complaints had soared to 6,000.
On September 7, 1999, Governor Gray Davis signed a bill that set the annual fee for the State Bar at $395, thus ending the funding crisis. Since then, the State Bar has undertaken several reforms to improve the efficiency of its operations. In 2002, the State Bar split off the Conference of Delegates into a separate volunteer organization, now known as the Conference of California Bar Associations.
On October 11, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the fee authorization bill for 2010. In his veto message accompanying the return of the unsigned bill to the Legislature, he stated that just as in 1997, the State Bar had again become inefficient, scandal-ridden, and excessively politicized.
In 2015 and 2016, the California State Auditor's Office found that the State Bar was inefficient and had failed to properly engage with stakeholders. The State Auditor's Office also determined that the State Bar's financial reporting lacked transparency and had obscured a growing shortfall in its Client Security Fund, masking a high volume of claims that the State Bar expected the fund would be required to pay. Audits also found that the State Bar had created an unnecessary nonprofit organization and then used State Bar funds to cover the nonprofit's financial losses.
Another punitive lapse occurred in 2016, when the State Legislature allowed its session to end without enacting a bill authorizing the bar to collect lawyer fees in 2017.
In 2018, however, the State Bar "split" into two entities, with a newly appointee-only board of trustees. In late 2019, the State Legislature approved the first licensing fee increase for the State Bar in over 20 years. Annual licensing fees for active attorneys now total $510.00.