California's Crumbling Bar: Leaders fight to save organization after dues bill is vetoedAuthor(s): TERRY CARTERSource: ABA Journal, Vol. 84, No. 3 (MARCH 1998), pp. 20-21Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27839861 .

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mmm news

California's Crumbling Bar

Leaders fight to save organization after dues bill is vetoed

BY TERRY CARTER

The State Bar of Cali

fornia is caught in a

political earthquake that has damaged the structure

of the nation's largest uni fied bar.

With a long memory for political slights and a

keen eye for more recent missteps by bar leaders, Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed dues legislation for the bar last fall and insisted on

stripping the or

ganization of any functions other than admissions and discipline.

Now leaders of the bar, which has 156,000 mem bers, are scram

bling to win sup port for a so-called compromise bill that would split the bar into mandatory and voluntary arms as well as take a big

chunk out of the mandatory bar's

dues.

On the Fault Une Bar President

Marc D. Adelman, a solo practitioner in San Diego, took the helm just three weeks before the governor's Oct. 11 veto. He quickly became the bar's Gorbachev, presid ing over the de

mise of an empire that included one sixth of the law yers in the Unit ed States.

'Tve had trouble sleeping at night," says Adelman. "I thought I was going to have an interesting year?without the governor's veto."

The legislation to bifurcate the bar and limit its activities was in troduced Jan. 14 and entered a 30 day waiting period for public com

Alaska California

Utah Arizona

$440 $428 $350 $285

ment, during which no committee action can begin. Attempts to get an emergency waiver and expedite the bill appeared to be doomed.

Those behind the measure

hope that the mandatory and vol untary segments of the bar still might be connected officially and thus lend the bar's imprimatur to the voluntary activities.

Bar supporters chafe at one

proposed bill that would kill the state bar and transfer admissions and discipline to the administra tive arm of the state supreme court. But such legislation is given little chance by most observers.

The plan now endorsed by bar leaders is so radical that labeling it "compromise" shows how far and how fast the bar's fortunes fell.

Before the fall veto, it seemed

the bar had overcome some serious blunders when the annual dues bill, with a tolerable $20 dues cut, eked through the legislature. The organization had fought off an ad ditional $25 cut but apparently un derestimated the influence of crit ics who persuaded the governor his

Ichance to change the bar had come.

The flap highlights the difficulties inherent in Califor nia's unique arrangement in which the legislature, rather than the supreme court, must approve the mandatory bar's dues request. Many believe a

separation of powers issue is being swept aside in the rush of events.

Another concern for many proponents of the bar is that the upheaval in the bar will

Ithreaten its ability to disci pline lawyers.

Roughly 70 percent of the bar's $60 million budget goes to the discipline system. Be cause of the sheer number of California lawyers, there is a

special state bar court for try ing misconduct cases.

Disciplinary Concerns This past year, dues were

$458 for lawyers who have prac ticed three years or longer. The proposed compromise legislation would lower that to $419 this year and $399 in 1999. Those cuts would severely curtail disciplinary scruti ny and enforcement, says Judy Johnson, chief trial counsel for the bar.

"The system has been looked at, prodded and plumbed by every body in the state to identify inef ficiencies," Johnson says.

"We've been there and done that in terms of budget cuts and believe the system is lean and mean."

After the dues pipeline shut

< Marc Adelman: I've had trouble sleeping at night.... I thought I was going to have an interesting year?without the governor's veto.'

20 ABA J0URN^^^PR:H 1998 abaj photos by dwightvallely

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down on the first of the year, the 700-employee bar froze hiring and eliminated 45 jobs in the first of several expected waves of layoffs. Executive Director Steven A. Nis sen, who took the bar's top staff position last September, is looking hard at possible cost-cutting mea sures.

Pay Raise Rollbacks His first day on the job, Nis

sen called a meeting of many of his senior executive staff, which numbers about 70, and rescinded pay raises that had just gone into effect for all of them. He did the same with raises for other man agers and staff.

"In an odd way, it was an un usual bonding experience," Nissen says of his initial interaction with his senior executives. "Most of them had come to the conclusion that times had changed and we all had to tighten belts."

That employee show of soli darity is in marked contrast to the nasty exchanges last year between then-President Thomas G. Stolp

man and Peter F. Kaye, a nonlaw yer and close Wilson adviser who was one of the governor's public member appointments to the bar's board of governors.

Kaye is a sharp-tongued, blunt talking former newspaper journal ist who ran Wilson's 1971 San Di ego mayoral campaign.

Stolpman is a forceful and successful Long Beach plaintiffs lawyer who also has been presi dent of the state's trial lawyers group, now the Consumer Attor neys Association of California.

The bar's recent misfortunes with the governor and the legisla ture, Kaye says, resulted from "a bar president who was a horse's ass and a fat, complacent, unresponsive staff."

Stolpman declines to match Kaye's rhetoric, dismissing him as acerbic and "not admired by many people involved with the board."

Many current and former bar leaders believe Stolpman seriously

misjudged the governor and the legislature last year when he took two tough stands. One was his op position to the proposed additional dues cut of $25. The other was his push for approval of two-year bar dues increases instead of the usual one-year hike.

Stolpman also was instru mental, along with former Execu

tive Director Herbert M. Rosenthal, who is now retired, in a controver sial arrangement that contracted out the bar's lobbying effort in a two-year, $900,000 deal with Mel Assagai, who had just left his job as the bar's $125,000-a-year in house lobbyist.

The lobbying deal had slipped through without the knowledge of the bar's board of governors. The gadfly Kaye gleefully fed the story to the press. He also threw his hat in the ring for the bar presidency last summer, even though he's not a lawyer. He admits doing so just

Peter Kaye: 'Just because you're a lawyer doesn't mean

^^BStfl you know squat about politics.' ^^Vfflfffl

to build a bigger bully pulpit. "Just because you're a law

yer doesn't mean you know squat about politics," Kaye says. "They pick a fight with me, and they're out of their minds. It's like me go ing into court arguing against them."

Stolpman says the lobbying deal isn't as bad as it has been portrayed, comparing it to the ini tial write-offs taken by corpora tions when they downsize, with savings becoming evident later. "It was a two-year transitional thing and saved us money, believe it or not," Stolpman says.

The bar's immediate past pres ident also disagrees that his fight for multiyear dues legislation and against the additional dues cut set up the bar for the governor's wrath and veto.

"It still would have happened, some year if not this year," Stolp

man says. "The bar as an institu tion has become a political foot ball."

Crying foul was Wilson, who took issue with some of the posi tions taken by the bar's Conference of Delegates. Its 500 members and as many alternates sometimes of fer nonbinding resolutions for the board of governors to consider for policy initiatives.

In the Governor's Sights No one seems to have forgotten

?especially the governor him self?the conference's defense of California Supreme Court Justice

Rose Bird at a time when Wilson was attacking her death penalty decisions in his 1992 run for a U.S. Senate seat.

At the bar's annual meeting last September, the Conference of

Delegates passed more res- _ olutions snowing its tra-

^^^j^. ditionally liberal lean- ^HIHIb^bW ings. ?HBI?HR Delegates called for ^^^^^^^H an end to capital punish- ^HHj^^^l ment and opposed chemi- ^^^h^^^V cal castration of child mo- ^^^^^^^V lesters, said transsexuals ^^^^^^HL and transvestites should ^^^Hflfl

be to sue ̂̂ ^^^^Ht^^Hj^^H for and ̂̂ ^^^^^K^^^^^^^M gave ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^? to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M law ̂^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^? Wil- ^^^^^^^^^^M son the ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H diver- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H meant ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H the ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H

the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H affirma

also wan- ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^^H dered into the gover- ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^H sights year ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^^H when a re- ̂^^^^^^^^^H from the Consu- ^^^^^^^^^^H mer Attorneys Associa- ̂^^^^^^^^^^H of California to put ̂^^^^^^^^^^fl its weight behind a pro posai to raise the cap on

^^^^^^^^^^H noneconomic damages ̂^^^^^^H^^H in medical malpractice ̂̂ ^^^^^|^^H Wilson and his ad- ̂^^^^^H^^H visers took note of the fact ̂̂ ^^^^H^^H that Stolpman once was ̂ ^^^^^H^^H president of the trial law- ̂̂ ^^^^Q^^H yers group. ^^^^^H With so many planets ^^^^^m aligned for Wilson to take

^^^^^m advantage of the gravita- ^^^^H tional politics, the earth- ^^^^^H quake seemed inevi- ^f^^^^^V

^^^^^ \ ABA JOURNAL / MAR^^^21

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