[NEWS]

Bill would cut dues by $10

After considerable jockeying in Sacramento, a compromise bill would cut dues for State Bar members an additional $10, from $458 to $448, for the next two years.

Outgoing bar President Thomas Stolpman said the $10 cut to the bar's active lawyers would be financed through extra revenue generated by the sale of the bar's headquarters building in San Francisco and other cost-cutting measures. The compromise bill also would extend the bar's authorization to collect dues through 1999, a two-year bill which the bar originally had requested. An earlier agreement had limited the authorization to collect dues to 1998 only.

Assembly member Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the use of bar dues for lobbying activities, failed in an attempt to cut dues by $25.

In approving the amendments, the Assembly voted to send the measure back to the judiciary committee for a second hearing.

[CALBAR JOURNAL]