Applicants
sought for election to board
Nominating
petitions are available for attorneys interested in running for election in Districts 1 and 3.
District
1 covers Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino,
Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma counties. District 3 covers
Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc,
Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sierra,
Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba counties.
Any active
member of the State Bar who maintains his or her principal law office in the
district is eligible to run.
Nominating
petitions are due Dec. 1.
Voting will take place online and by mail in January and February 2016. The
election winners will begin their three-year terms in October 2016.
Diversity
award winners recognized at Annual Meeting
Outgoing
State Bar President Craig Holden presented awards last month to those who have made
outstanding efforts to promote diversity in the legal profession and support
students interested in careers in the law.
Diversity awards went to Deborah Broyles of San
Francisco, the firm-wide director of global diversity and inclusion at Reed
Smith LLP; Sidley Austin LLP; and the Sacramento County Bar Association,
Diversity Hiring & Retention Committee.
Education Pipeline Awards went to the Judge Stephen O’Neil
Trial Advocacy Mentoring Program at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and the University of San Francisco School
of Law, Academic Support Program.
Questions
about California Lawyer Magazine?
The State Bar
is not affiliated with California Lawyer Magazine, which ceased publication
with the October issue. For questions about the magazine or its CLE programs,
please contact the Daily Journal Corp. at 213-229-5558.
Spanish-language
seniors guide available for order
The State Bar last month released a
Spanish-language version of the popular “Seniors
and the Law: A Guide for Maturing Californians.” The free publication is now
available for ordering by the public. Up to 200 copies may be shipped for free
to Californians who fill out the online
order form.
The publication is one of a series of consumer
education guides produced by the bar’s Office of Communications with the help
of a grant from the California Bar Foundation. Newly updated, “Seniors and the
Law” addresses a number of issues confronting seniors, including finances and
debt, housing and caregiving, elder abuse/elder fraud and estate planning. The
latest version incorporates changes in the law since 2012, such as the
legalization of same-sex marriage.
Think twice before giving a gift to a judge
With the arrival of
gift-giving season, State Bar ethics experts remind attorneys of information on judicial ethics, including the topic of
gifts to judges. During this gift-giving season, a lawyer may want to give a
modest present to a judge or employee of a tribunal. Selected resources found
on the judicial ethics page strongly suggest that a lawyer should be very cautious about
this conduct. In particular, one of the linked resources is an opinion of the
California Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions, Formal Opinion No.
2014-005.
Applying applicable provisions of the California Code of Judicial Ethics, the
committee opines that there are many circumstances where acceptance of a gift
would be absolutely banned, including situations where the gift-giver is a
lawyer.
The judicial ethics page provides a collection of selected resources intended to promote
a lawyer’s awareness and understanding of judicial ethics. In some circumstances,
a lawyer is required to comply with standards ordinarily applicable only to
judges (for example, a lawyer serving as a temporary judge, referee or
court-appointed arbitrator).
Find a
certified/registered court interpreter
Under Government Code Section 68561 (with definitions in Section
68560.5), a deposition in a civil case filed in a court of record is a “court
proceeding” and therefore an interpreter used shall be either: (1) a certified
court interpreter for languages designated by the Judicial Council (see link
for current languages: http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/CIP-Certified-Languages.pdf) or (2) a registered
court interpreter for languages not designated by the Judicial Council (all
other languages). Attorneys can use the Judicial Council master list to search
for certified and registered interpreters who are in good standing with the
Judicial Council, available here: http://www.courts.ca.gov/3796.htm.
Attorneys should also be aware that effective Jan. 1, 2015,
California Government Code Section 68561
was amended to include section (h), which requires certain information that a certified or
registered interpreter must state for the record in the deposition and the
documentation regarding the interpreter’s qualifications that a certified or
registered interpreter must present to both parties in a deposition.
Running
for judicial office? Take this mandatory free course
California judges and lawyers seeking a judicial office must
take a new online judicial ethics course within 60 days of filing for office,
creating a campaign committee or receiving a campaign contribution. The mandatory
judicial ethics course went online in 2014.
The course was developed by a working group of justices, judges
and lawyers after the Supreme Court adopted the mandatory rule, along with
other changes to the California Code of Judicial Ethics, almost a year ago. The Rules of Professional Conduct require a lawyer
candidate for judicial office to comply with the Code of Judicial Ethics.
The rule came out of the work of the Commission
for Impartial Courts.
Consult the Ethics Hotline
Time is money and legal research takes time. California legal
ethics research can be particularly time-consuming. First, California is not an
ABA Model Rule jurisdiction, so dusting off your law school textbook or simply
Googling won’t always cut it. On top of that, the applicable California law is
often found in multiple sources, many of which are unfamiliar to most lawyers.
If you consult the California Rules of Professional Conduct, that’s great, but you
can’t stop there. Consider the following questions:
- May
an attorney use inadvertently disclosed confidential information?
- Does
the “no contact” rule permit an attorney to imply opposing counsel’s consent?
- Is a
“virtual law office” an ethical alternative for starting a solo practice?
You can get assistance in researching these questions by calling
the State Bar of California’s Ethics
Hotline.
This call-back service is free, staffed by live people and typically has a
turnaround time of one business day or less.
If you’ve never tried calling the Ethics Hotline, here’s the
official pitch: The Ethics Hotline is a confidential telephone research service
for attorneys. This service is staffed by specially trained paralegals who can
refer callers to the California Rules of Professional Conduct, State Bar Act
sections, published bar association ethics opinions and other relevant
authorities. Although the Ethics Hotline staff does not render opinions or give
advice, this guidance serves as a valuable resource that can jump-start legal
ethics research and aid lawyers in making informed decisions about their legal
ethics questions.
Attorneys can reach the Ethics Hotline from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on
weekdays by calling 800-238-4427 (800-2-ETHICS) from within California, or
415-538-2150 when calling from outside of California.
Use this form for fee
disputes with clients
Attorneys who encounter a fee dispute with a client are reminded
to use the State Bar’s version of the Notice of Client’s Right to Fee Arbitration form. The form has been
approved by the State Bar Board of Trustees and contains the State Bar seal to
ensure that lawyers are providing clients with the correct form.
Business and Professions Code Section 6201(a) requires that
lawyers send the notice to their clients before or at the time of initiating a
lawsuit, or other action to collect fees. Attorneys are legally required to use
the State Bar’s form – not their own version put on their firm’s letterhead.
Mandatory
fee arbitration is designed to reduce the number of fee disputes that end up in
court. The vast majority of fee disputes handled through the mandatory fee
arbitration process are resolved without filing an action in superior court,
saving the courts valuable time and money, said Doug Hull, director of the
State Bar’s Mandatory Fee Arbitration Program.
There
are also sample fee agreements for lawyers on the forms and resources page of the State Bar
website.
Subscribe to the Daily
News Digest
In between
monthly issues of the Bar Journal, you can keep up with the major legal news of
the day by visiting the new Daily News Digest on the Bar Journal’s home page.
The State Bar’s Office of Communications scours the day’s news and culls top
headlines of interest to legal professionals. You may also subscribe by
visiting the Daily
News Digest web page.
Follow us on Twitter,
LinkedIn
Stay
informed by following @StateBarCA on Twitter and the State
Bar of California page on LinkedIn. We’ll give you a heads up about important
regulatory information and let you know about other happenings at the State Bar
or within the legal community. If you’re seeking information relevant to your
particular practice area, the State Bar’s voluntary sections and the California
Young Lawyers Association also have a presence on social media through
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Opt out of lists
Attorneys
who wish to remove their names from lists the State Bar provides to qualified
outside entities may do so by logging on to My State Bar Profile. Go to “account information” and select
“update my mailing preferences (opt out).”