33 Striking Staff Attorneys Will Be Replaced by California Bar

The State Bar of California will begin taking steps to permanently replace 33 staff attorneys who have been on strike since April 25 in a wage dispute, a spokesman for the organization said Sunday.

However, Don W. Martens, chairman of the state Bar’s labor relations committee, said the move “doesn’t preclude (the staff lawyers) from coming back to work. We are still hoping that the old attorneys will come back. . . .”

At a meeting Saturday in San Francisco, the state Bar’s 22-member Board of Governors voted to begin hiring new, full-time attorneys, Martens said, a process that could take several weeks. Because several staff attorney positions are vacant, Martens said, the Bar could hire some new lawyers without immediately replacing any of those on strike.

The striking attorneys, who prosecute lawyer discipline cases in San Francisco and Los Angeles, earn between $2,700 and $4,800 a month. They have twice rejected proposed settlements that were endorsed by their own negotiators. The lawyers are represented by the Service Employees International Union.

On Friday, state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) endorsed the attorneys’ call to submit the dispute to binding arbitration.

Although the state Bar’s governing board has yet to respond, Martens said he believes that the organization cannot legally comply with Brown’s request.

“The setting of salaries is a discretionary matter. . . ,” Martens said. “There are (court) cases in analogous situations involving other government agencies which say you cannot delegate that authority.”

Marilyn Alper, a spokeswoman for the striking attorneys, said “we are unable to understand Mr. Martens’ stand. We sought binding arbitration a week ago and still would like to submit the matter to a neutral arbitrator. We would like to see this dispute resolved as rapidly as possible so that we can go back to work at disciplining unethical attorneys.

“The cases to which Mr. Martens refers are not applicable and there is a way of setting the arbitration so there would be no legal restraint. The Bar is paying $90 an hour on strike-breaking attorneys when the highest paid of the attorneys in our offices only makes $28 an hour,” she said.

“Our demands are more than fair and equitable, the state Board of Governors seems more intent on breaking the strike than in maintaining and creating a discipline system that would maintain and retain competent attorneys for prosecuting discipline cases.”

The State Bar of California is the constitutionally chartered organization that admits attorneys to the practice of law and regulates their conduct. The state Bar levies mandatory dues on the state’s 90,000 attorneys to finance its operation.