News
Government
Apr. 22, 1999
Support Expected for Amended State Bar Dues Bill, Sources Say
State Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, will amend his bill on the State Bar this week to give the bar the dues amount it wants and to leave its ability to lobby unchanged, according to knowledgeable sources.
All California lawyers would be asked to pay $395 in dues next year, down from $478 in 1997. But in a boon to poor lawyers, those who earn less than $25,000 a year could receive a 50 percent discount off their dues, while those who earn less than $40,000 could get a 25 percent break, according to Christopher Carlisle, an aide to Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, who is the joint author of Schiff's bill.
State Bar President Raymond C. Marshall said the bill will "get a great deal of support from the bar."
The dues discounts would replace previous dues reductions given lawyers in practice less than one year or less than three years. Sources said the bar has not estimated how much the proposed discounts would cost it.
Schiff made clear early on that giving less-than-wealthy lawyers a break was a major goal for his bill. In another move to trim the cost of practicing law, the bill would reduce lawyers' continuing legal education mandate from 36 hours every three years to 25 hours.
In an interview Tuesday, the senator said the bill would "make real, positive changes to the bar, both for the public and the members of the bar."
The bill would also allow the bar to use mandatory dues to lobby on the full range of issues permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990). The landmark ruling allows the bar to lobby on issues dealing with "regulating the legal profession and improving the quality of legal services."
In 1997, the State Bar Board of Governors set off a storm of controversy by endorsing a bill to raise caps on medical malpractice damages. They acted, they said, within Keller's confines.
Schiff's bill would bump to $4 the amount lawyers can hold back from their dues to avoid paying for lobbying outside the Keller standards. "If you object, you don't have to pay for it," Hertzberg said Tuesday.
In the past, the bar had allowed lawyers to withhold $1 of dues by marking a check-off box on their dues statements. The bar Board of Governors voted to raise the so-called "Hudson deduction" to $1.50 for last year, but the change was not implemented.
Hertzberg said his and Schiff's bill responds to critics of bar lobbying because it would cut off the controversial Conference of Delegates from mandatory dues. Under the bill, neither the conference nor the bar's 18 special-interest sections would receive any funds from mandatory dues after the first of the year.
But the conference and sections would remain part of the bar "family" because they would be able to contract with the bar for administrative services and the bar could collect their voluntary dues as part of the regular bar dues billing process, according to Carlisle.
Schiff said Tuesday that the conference is valuable and one of the most democratic aspects of the bar. "And it ought to remain in the bar," he said.
Leaders of the conference and the sections have generally agreed to the funding change and have already moved to raising their own money. Once they no longer receive any money from mandatory dues, they could lobby on any issues at all.
Sue Frauens, a Los Angeles deputy city attorney who co-chairs the sections' leadership committee, said she is pleased by the content of the bill. Many larger sections, especially, consider their ability to comment on pending legislation and to offer legislation of their own to be "a drop-dead issue" in supporting a bar bill, she said.
Hertzberg said lawyers from the bar sections provide valuable testimony to all the Legislature's committees. "The sections do a lot of good," he said.
In an interview Tuesday in Sacramento, Marshall, a partner in San Francisco's McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, said the "final, final" details of Schiff and Hertzberg's bill, SB144, were still being worked out. Other provisions of the bill would:
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Eliminate the requirement that lawyers receive four hours of mandatory continuing legal education on law office management.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? End the MCLE exemption currently given retired judges. But state officials, legislators and state lawyers retain their exemption. A separate legislative-intent section of the bill explains those government lawyers effectively receive continuing education in the performance of their jobs.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Call for more MCLE courses to be made available cheaply and over the Internet, and require that by July lawyers be able to take the self-study portion of their MCLE course work online at an hourly cost of $15 or less.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Encourage the bar to look into allowing lawyers to pay their dues by credit card or in installments.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Require a comprehensive financial audit, with results sent to the Legislature, before dues are authorized for 2001.
As Schiff and Marshall have said in the past, however, the bill would not change the structure of the bar Board of Governors, the Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts program, the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, the bar's Client Security Fund or some of the other programs examined during last year's debate on the future of the bar.
The bill also incorporates all of a bill on attorney discipline by Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, the president pro tem of the Senate. Those provisions would strengthen the constitutional rights of lawyers who are defendants in disciplinary cases and would require the bar to study whether it prosecutes lawyers in small firms disproportionately compared to lawyers in large firms.
The Senate approved Burton's bill, SB143, unanimously two weeks ago.
Two Republicans, Sen. Bill Morrow of Oceanside and Assemblyman Dick Ackerman of Fullerton, have introduced competing bills on the State Bar. Both bills would impose much greater limits on State Bar lobbying and would completely cut off the Conference of Delegates from the bar.
During a hearing Tuesday on his AB1153, Ackerman told the Assembly Judiciary Committee that he could support setting bar dues at $395 as Schiff's bill would. The figure is higher than any amount Republicans endorsed last year.
That comment by the Assembly's leading Republican on the bar issue raises the possibility that Republicans might agree to a version of Schiff's bill. Marshall told the Judiciary Committee members Tuesday that he hoped soon to bring them a bill that is supported by both parties.
If Schiff and Hertzberg can persuade Republicans to support SB144, the bill could win two-thirds votes and pass as urgency legislation. An urgency bill would take effect as soon as Gov. Gray Davis signed it rather than next year.
In an interview, Marshall said he is "always hopeful" of obtaining an urgency bill. "I'm hopeful Sen. Morrow and other Republicans will come along, but we're going with Sen. Schiff's and Assemblyman Hertzberg's bill."
Schiff's and Morrow's bills are set for hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Daily Journal Staff Writer Tom Dresslar in Sacramento contributed to this story.
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Don De Benedictis
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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