Avoid a penalty by paying bar dues by Feb. 1

My State Bar Profile

All California attorneys, whether active or inactive, must pay their annual State Bar fees by the statutory due date of Feb. 1. The fees may be paid online or postmarked by that date or a late payment charge — $100 for active lawyers and $30 for inactive members — will be assessed.

Members whose last names begin with letters A-G (Group 1) also must submit their MCLE compliance cards online or make sure they are postmarked by Feb. 1. Group 1 members who miss that compliance date will be assessed a $75 late compliance fee beginning on Feb. 2.

To help lawyers pay on time, the bar also is waiving all bank fees for online payments. Last year, the 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 charge.

Historically, more than 70 percent of the bar’s members — last year, 140,000 — have paid their fees on time by the statutory dues deadline of Feb. 1. The board previously granted a 45-day extension for the 65,000 attorneys who paid late; however, because of the extensive cost to the bar to collect dues from the remaining 30 percent — many of whom repeatedly pay late, and in many cases at the very last minute before suspension by the Supreme Court — the bar’s board of governors voted last summer to eliminate the extension.

In the past, third and fourth mailings also were 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. That means lawyers in arrears have not been placed on administrative suspension until mid-September.

In addition to enforcing the statutory deadline, the bar will assess every lawyer who ultimately is suspended for non-payment of fees a $100 reinstatement fee before being allowed to practice law again. Those suspended for failure to comply with MCLE requirements will have to pay a $200 reinstatement fee.

The 2007 fee for active lawyers is $400; for inactive lawyers, the annual fee is $125. Attorneys who change their status from active to inactive must file the change form with the bar and pay their dues by Feb. 1 to be eligible for the inactive fee for 2007. The annual fee is waived for inactive lawyers 70 years or older.

Lawyers can deduct $5 for the bar’s lobbying activities and $5 for elimination of bias programs. Members eligible to scale dues and who pay by Feb. 1 are entitled to a 25 percent reduction in their fees.

The fee statement also will offer the option of joining one or more of the bar’s sections as well as making donations to the Foundation of the State Bar, the Conference of Delegates of California Bar Associations and the California Supreme Court Historical Society.

Lawyers in Compliance Group 1 (last names A-G) must complete 25 hours of continuing education. Up to half the hours may be self-study through an approved provider and the remainder must be participatory. The requirements include four hours of ethics instruction, one hour of elimination of bias and an hour of detection/prevention of substance abuse. California Bar Journal self-study tests are available at the bar’s Web site, calbar.ca.gov.

Complete information about MCLE requirements is available at the Web site by clicking on MCLE in the right-hand menu.

Compliance may be submitted electronically through the My State Bar Profile feature on the bar’s Web site.