Your dollars and the bar's diversity
By Sheldon Sloan
President, State Bar of California
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Sloan |
As members of the State Bar Board of Governors, our most important duty — second
only to public protection — is keeping watch over the hard-earned dollars
you send us each year both in mandatory dues and voluntary donations. Over
the past six years, we have restructured our governance and budget procedures
to strengthen this oversight function and ensure that bar funds are spent efficiently
and wisely.
As a result, our governors are much better informed about where bar money
goes and are able to debate and set new policies that enable bar staff to save
even more without hindering existing programs. To this end, I want to highlight
two of these new policies so that our members also are well informed about
steps we have taken to spend your money wisely.
First, just last month, the board voted to create a new 25-member Council
on Access & Fairness to replace five existing legal access committees currently
composed of more than 60 members. While we took this step predominantly to
advance our major "pipeline to diversity" initiative, we estimate that this
consolidation of five disparate committees into a single council will result
in a cost savings of $250,000 to the bar. We operate in a world of finite assets,
and it is our duty to our members to maximize the effectiveness of our dollars.
Let me point out, though, that we made this decision only after determining
that the consolidation would help us move our pipeline project to a new level.
The five committees — Legal Professionals With Disabilities; Senior Lawyers;
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination; Women in the Law; and
Ethnic Minority Relations — have been extremely helpful in allowing us
to achieve the success we have enjoyed to date, but it's time to pull it all
together and operate not as a task force, but rather as an ongoing part of
the mainstream structure of the bar.
The new council will be composed of members from the judiciary, bar associations,
corporate counsel, law schools, universities, school districts, education,
law firms and public agencies and will be charged with increasing the diversity
of the bar by identifying promising students early on and educating and supporting
them toward becoming lawyers. These efforts currently, and in the future, are
not supported by bar dues; the funds for these projects are raised through
voluntary check-offs on your annual fee statement. This past year, lawyers
generously gave nearly $770,000 for these efforts.
While we are on the subject of the fee statement, that brings us to our second
major cost saving of the year. Historically, more than 70 percent of the bar's
members have paid their annual membership fees by the statutory deadline of
Feb. 1. In the past, however, an automatic extension of 45 days beyond the
statutory deadline had been granted. After careful analysis, we determined
that the automatic extension cost the bar an extra $175,000 in actual costs
(with no dollar figure attached to labor costs) because of the second notices
that had to be sent to more than 60,000 attorneys. This does not include third
and fourth mailings that had to be sent to members who missed both deadlines.
As my good friend and colleague on the board, Governor James Penrod of San
Francisco, said at our August meeting: "The members who pay on time should
not have to pay the extra costs for getting the rest of the members to pay
their dues." And even more, members who do not pay should not be allowed to
practice law for up to eight months before the Supreme Court suspends them.
The board agreed, and this year all fees must be paid online or postmarked
by the statutory due date of February 1. If not paid by that time, beginning on
February 2, late payments will be assessed a $100 late fee for active attorneys
and $30 for inactive members.
To help our members pay on time, the bar is waiving all bank fees for online
payments. Last year, the online bank charge to members was $5, with the bar
picking up the rest of the bank fee. This year, there is no fee to members
for paying online and the bar will pick up all of the bank charges.
This is a good business decision and one we have highlighted repeatedly in
the California Bar Journal and on our Web site. Our members receive their fee
statements 75 days before the statutory deadline for payment — all 2007
fee statements were mailed on November 15. If you did not receive your 2007 fee
statement, call our Member Services Center at 1-888-800-3400 right away. Please
check our Web site at calbar.ca.gov to be sure that your current contact information
is listed there. This is the source we use to mail dues bills and to contact
you when you are close to being suspended. If we cannot find you, you may be
in danger of having a suspension on your record for a very long time, so take
a minute and check now. Please.
These are two of the major decisions we have made in the past few months to
save on State Bar expenses. Our oversight committees will continue to monitor
bar spending and programs and work to keep expenses down. For those members
interested in bar spending, the results of the bar's most recent audit may
be found on our Web site at calbar.ca.gov/audit05.
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