Reform is underway at the State Bar
By David Pasternak
President, the State Bar of California
During my presidency I continue to hear the call for reform
of the State Bar from various corners. We must do all we can to make sure the bar fulfills its important public protection mission. The Board of Trustees is working with the bar’s management
team to reform and improve organizational operations. These systemic structural
reform efforts are underway, informed by the results of four recently issued legislatively
mandated reports that can be found on the State Bar website. Here
is a brief summary of each of these extraordinary reports:
- Workforce
Planning. The report recommends significant operational changes in the
Office of Chief Trial Counsel (OCTC), the Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) and
the Office of Probation. Changes include combining the unit that investigates attorney
misconduct with the unit that prosecutes those attorneys so the work can
proceed more efficiently, defining the appropriate role of LAP in terms of both
prevention and enforcement activities and streamlining and modernizing probation
functions.
- A Classification and Compensation study for OCTC, which revealed some disparities in the bar’s pay scales. The
study found that attorney salaries were below the labor market median while
non-lawyer positions were higher than average. A bar-wide classification and
compensation analysis is now underway. This will benchmark salaries at all
levels, from the executive director down, to comparable state salaries.
- Backlog
Report. The State Bar has a statutory requirement to review complaints
against attorneys within 180 days. The report concluded that additional resources are needed to bring down
the number of cases in backlog. To meet the current standard would require 81
additional full-time positions. Funding for such positions will be a challenge,
but ongoing work to achieve economies and efficiencies should help and reduce
the need to seek license fee increases if not absolutely necessary.
- Finally, a Spending
Plan, which both estimates the cost of implementing the recommendations and
findings of the preceding three reports and analyzes their impact on the level
of member fees assessed. Cost estimates range from $1.5 million to $10.4
million. The State Bar staff, which is working directly on the implementation
of these recommendations by year end (as mandated by the Legislature in last
year's fee bill), is also staffing subcommittees of board members assigned to
oversee and participate in the implementation process. Along with the
forthcoming review of changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct, this is one
of the most important things the board is doing this year.
I applaud the efforts of our new senior management team,
which had the foresight to recognize the need for budget savings in January
when it recommended a 6.2-percent
reduction in expenditures this year. Additional proactive and responsible
fiscal management practices include consolidation of our reserve accounts this
year to only three accounts for more fiscal transparency, adoption of restrictions
on transfers between accounts and implementation of a plan to lease our empty
San Francisco office space to generate additional revenue. A careful review of
the budget continues as we seek to identify resources internally and externally
to support our reform and improvement efforts.
Separately, the Governance in the Public Interest Task Force
has received a great deal of valuable input on how we can create the best
governance structure to ensure that we carry out our critical public protection
mission. That input has addressed various
suggested reforms that can be found on the task
force page. The governance report will be finalized later this month.
Both the board and the bar's management are committed to
working with our stakeholders in the Legislature and Supreme Court to find the
best path forward. We want solutions that are thoughtful, measured and
instituted to address issues that need solutions and not adopted for other
purposes – keeping our ultimate mission of public protection always at the
forefront.