Bar to adhere to ‘real’ deadline for dues payment

$100 late penalty will attach Feb. 2

By Nancy McCarthy
Staff Writer

If you’re one of more than 60,000 California lawyers who wait until March 15 to pay your bar dues, here’s a heads up: you’ll have to start paying on time or face a penalty.

By statute, State Bar dues are due on Feb. 1. In 2007, bar dues not postmarked or paid online by Feb. 1 will be considered late and a $100 penalty will attach on Feb. 2. In addition, every lawyer who ultimately is suspended in late summer by the Supreme Court for non-payment of fees will be required to pay a $100 reinstatement fee before being allowed to practice law.

The State Bar Board of Governors enacted the tougher measures last month in an effort to shorten the 10-month span and enormous expense it takes to collect dues every year. On average, after the Feb. 1 statutory deadline, the bar sends out 65,000 second notices to members who haven’t complied.

A third and fourth mailing are subsequently sent to delinquent dues payers, with a statutory “Final Delinquent Notice” included in the fourth mailing. The board must wait 60 days following the final mailing before it can act to have the Supreme Court administratively suspend the attorneys who haven’t paid.

“We want to adhere to the statutory due date,” said Peggy Van Horn, the bar’s chief financial officer, who noted that fee statements are initially sent on Nov. 15 and that the administrative suspension does not occur now until 10 months later, on Sept. 15.

Added Dean Kinley, the bar executive who oversees the fee statement, “Every year it is virtually the same 5,000 to 6,000 non-payers” who receive all the notices and whose names appear on the suspension list generated in the summer. “Over the years, we started making exceptions for nearly everyone,” he added.

The cost for the first mailing in November to all members runs close to $100,000, and the second, third and fourth mailings can each cost between $20,000 and $30,000, depending on postage. Kinley said he could not begin to estimate the tens of thousands of dollars in labor it costs the bar to process four mailings while non-paying attorneys are permitted to practice law more than 10 months after they receive their dues notice, and more than eight months after their dues were due.

The change the board approved means that active lawyers whose payment is not postmarked, or paid online through My State Bar Profile, by Feb. 1 must pay a $100 penalty. Inactive members will be charged a $30 penalty.

Although the deadline for bar dues is Feb. 1, the bar has long offered a 45-day grace period before it penalized people who pay late. As a result, thousands of lawyers, and many large law firms, wait until March 15 to pay their dues. A second penalty that previously was assessed May 15 was eliminated.

But Richard Crabtree, a governor from Chico, opposed the change. “People have gotten used to flexibility in deadlines,” he said. “I think we should stick with the current penalties.”

The reinstatement fee, which Van Horn called “an attention-getter,” drew opposition from Marguerite Downing, a governor from Los Angeles, who felt it flies in the face of any bar efforts to be member-friendly. Lawyers “have to pay dues to belong,” she said. “We want them to feel they belong. It’s important to limit the ways” they do not become unhappy with the bar.

The board did change a staff recommendation that new admittees who don’t pay dues within 30 days of their invoice date be given 45 days to pay. Lawyers admitted to the bar between Jan. 1 and May 31 pay full dues; the penalty for late payment in that group will be $100. Those admitted between June 1 and Nov. 30 pay $200 in dues for their first year of practice; the penalty for that group will be $50.

“I don’t want them to join the club and have them mad at us,” Downing said. Kinley noted that a variety of proposals are being considered to help make the new admittee experience “more welcoming.”