Straight Shooter Wied Aims to Shape Up Beleaguered State Bar

Some of Colin Wied’s colleagues wonder why in the world he wants to be president of the State Bar. After all, they point out, life at the Bar hasn’t exactly been trouble-free of late.

For starters, there’s the attorney discipline problem. With the state Legislature threatening to take away lawyers’ self-policing powers, the Bar is under the gun to improve its much-maligned system of identifying and punishing unethical attorneys.

Also dogging the Bar is a dismal public image, and malpractice insurance rates have mushroomed out of control in recent years. Finally, lest the Bar somehow forget its woes, a state-appointed watchdog churns out frequent scathing reports detailing them for all to see.

“There’s an awful lot of pressure on the Bar right now, and I don’t envy Colin at all,” said San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Midlam, an acquaintance of Wied’s. “He’s got a tough job ahead of him.”

But Wied, pronounced weed, doesn’t seem worried. Indeed, the slender, soft-spoken business law attorney from San Diego appears downright inspired by the daunting challenge of serving as State Bar president for the one-year term.

“Certainly, there are a lot of pressing problems on the agenda,” Wied said in a recent interview. “But I feel we’re right on the verge of solving some of them, and it’s a terrific honor to be selected for this position.”

Today, Wied, 53, will be formally elected president by the Bar’s Board of Governors at a special meeting in San Francisco. He ran unopposed for the post and will replace San Mateo attorney Terry Anderlini when he takes office at the Bar’s annual meeting Sept. 23.

Most recently, Wied has been vice president and treasurer of the State Bar, serving as chairman of its administration and finance committee. He was active in hammering out a controversial proposal to raise annual dues to $470 to pay for improvements in the attorney discipline system, and he has worked on a plan to bring malpractice insurance rates under control.

Although seemingly unfazed by the host of troubles besetting the State Bar, Wied concedes his term as president is likely to be tumultuous.

Wied said his priority will be to carry out the far-reaching discipline system improvements recommended by State Bar Monitor Robert C. Fellmeth. Fellmeth has harshly criticized the system in a series of reports, noting that its massive backlog of consumer complaints causes intolerable delays in reprimanding attorneys whose conduct deserves prompt attention.

Perhaps the most important of these changes involves the creation of a panel of 11 administrative-law judges to decide disciplinary cases and a three-person appellate court to handle appeals. These judges will replace a sometimes unreliable army of volunteer attorneys whose verdicts have been criticized as inconsistent.

Other reforms include hiring more investigators to reduce workloads and raising pay to attract qualified people and improve morale. Nearly all of the improvements are contingent on passage of pending legislation.

Another issue Wied hopes to address during his tenure is improving the competence of California’s 110,000 attorneys. Despite the high degree of specialization that characterizes the legal profession today, Wied said “half the attorneys in the state are practicing in these specialty bars without any training whatsoever.”

“I’m not talking esoteric things here, but basic skills that you really don’t learn in law school, like drafting a will or a durable power of attorney,” Wied said. “The Bar needs to first identify the level of competence lawyers should achieve and then establish a program to help them get there.”

Wied also said he wants the Bar to improve legal services for middle-income clients and mount an education campaign to stem the erosion of public confidence in lawyers and the legal system.

A native of Wisconsin who grew up in San Diego, Wied lives in the Mission Hills area with his wife, Betty, and their son Scott. A second son, Douglas, is a Navy officer, and their daughter, Beth, is a law student at the University of San Diego.

Wied, a former naval aviator who retired as a captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps, received a law degree from Boalt Hall in 1964. He was president of the San Diego County Bar Assn. in 1979 and chairman of the Bar’s Conference of Delegates in 1984. His law practice, Wied & Smelko, focuses on business reorganization and bankruptcy.

When he’s not dashing around the state to Bar functions, Wied enjoys sailing; he is a longtime member of the San Diego Yacht Club and also likes to fish.

A Strong Negotiator

Attorneys and judges who know Wied describe him as the consummate dedicated hard worker, a man well-suited for the myriad demands of the Bar presidency. Anderlini, the outgoing president, praised Wied’s leadership skills and ability to forge a compromise at the bargaining table.

“Colin has been a loyal servant to the bar and the profession should be gratified it has a person of this caliber willing to serve,” Anderlini said. “He’s been extremely active and has a lot of leadership talent.”

Daniel Tobin, a La Mesa attorney and fellow Navy man who occasionally bumps into Wied at the local Navy Exchange, said his old friend is a natural for the Bar presidency in this era.

“Candidly, I don’t think there’s a person in the state that’s had more involvement overall in all aspects of Bar work,” Tobin said. “Colin is the type of person the Bar needs at this time. When he identifies an issue he feels needs to be addressed, he is very, very persistent until he pushes it to resolution.”

The new president even measures up well in the eyes of the Bar’s harshest critic. Fellmeth, appointed State Bar Monitor in January, 1987, said Wied is “a straight shooter who is reliable and very sincere in his desire to improve the profession.”