Mongolian
officials visit State Bar for guidance on attorney regulation
By Rex
Bossert
Staff Writer
The State
Bar has hosted a delegation of Mongolian legal officials who are gathering
information to establish a new attorney regulatory scheme based on California’s
model.
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State Bar CEO Joseph Dunn meets with Mongolian lawyer Enkhchuluun Jambalsuren. |
The fact-finding
delegation was led by Mongolian Bar Association President Batsukh
Dorjsuren. They were welcomed late last month to the State Bar’s Los Angeles
office with remarks by State Bar President Luis J. Rodriguez.
Speaking
through a translator, Deputy Executive Director/CEO Robert Hawley introduced
the Mongolian delegation to various aspects of the rules of professional
conduct for California lawyers, including the duties of client confidentiality
and loyalty, the duty of truthfulness to the court and malpractice insurance.
“I think a
fundamental question for you is, ‘What [do] you want from your rules?’ ” Hawley
said. “Do you want them to tell lawyers how to behave? Or do you want rules to
establish clearly defined standards?”
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A delegation of Mongolian lawyers learns about the State Bar Court. From left, they are Batzorigt Jugdernamjil, Enkhchuluun Jambalsuren and Dugarmaa Avirmed. |
One official
asked what the State Bar does to protect the public. Hawley replied that the
bar’s website provides basic information about every lawyer – including background,
status and disciplinary record – and an array of bar publications explain laws
and legal rights.
Chief Trial
Counsel Jayne Kim described the discipline system for the nearly quarter
million State Bar members, as well as the handling of about 16,000 complaints
last year, which led to discipline in about 1,000 cases involving more than 400
lawyers.
In contrast,
Mongolia, which is located between Russia and China, has nearly 5,000 lawyers
and a population of close to 3 million.
Senior
Director of Admissions Gayle Murphy explained to the delegation the California
bar admissions process and the oversight duties of the 19-member Committee of
Bar Examiners.
The
delegation also met with State Bar Court officials and observed proceedings of
the court, which is independent from the State Bar.
The June
26-27 meeting was part of an exchange that involved two previous meetings between
Mongolian and State Bar officials. The exchange was initiated last fall by the
Mongolian government.
In October
2013, a Mongolian official contacted the State Bar asking for help implementing
that country’s recently passed Law on Lawyers, which created a unified bar
association to oversee admission to legal practice and attorney discipline.
The request,
which came from Mongolia’s counsel general in San Francisco, sought the State
Bar’s help to train the leadership of the Mongolian lawyer group.
Mongolia has
vast untapped mineral wealth, but it has also had a reputation for political
corruption, according to past State Bar President Howard B. Miller, a partner
at Girardi Keese who traveled to Mongolia with bar officials.
Writing for
the Daily Journal in April, Miller said: “Mongolia may be a test case for the importance
of a functioning legal system that includes an independent integrated bar
association as well as a court system based on the rule of law.”