A few weeks ago I was struck by a certain irony as we celebrated Law Week in California. At a time when we salute the value of the rule of the law in our country, we are witnessing the possibility of dismantling the structure of the legal profession in our state — based on the political…
The decision to seek relief from the Supreme Court of California for the State Bar funding crisis did not come easily, nor did it come without significant and substantial debate. It had been the main subject of debate by the board of governors for almost eight months. Every conceivable effort was made to craft a…
The number of calls and correspondence concerning lawyer discipline that find their way to my small office is ever increasing with each passing day. Clearly, the financial inability of the State Bar to undertake new discipline matters is escalating into a terrible problem. With the current standoff in the legislature, the problem is, in fact,…
As my term comes to an end, I thought I would share in my last president’s column some thoughts and insights from the past year. It was a little over a year ago–July 26, 1997, to be exact–that I was elected president of the State Bar. It was the culmination of what most agreed to…