State Bar Steps Up Disciplining of Lawyers

Disciplinary actions against California lawyers have increased sharply under a broadly revamped system, but further reforms are needed to quell a “state of crisis” in attorney misconduct, a special monitor of the State Bar said Friday.

Robert C. Fellmeth, a University of San Diego law professor named in 1987 to investigate a bar discipline system widely assailed as too lax, credited State Bar of California leaders with making improvements that reduced backlogs and accelerated punishment for wrongdoing in the 128,000-member profession in California.

The number of attorneys removed from practice through disbarment or forced resignation jumped from 51 in 1985 to 147 last year, he said. Suspensions rose from 51 to 212 during the same period. The offenses can range from committing crimes to mishandling clients’ funds to failing to represent clients properly.

“We know of no precedent anywhere in the nation which can approach the dramatic turnaround achieved from 1987 to 1991 in California,” Fellmeth said.

But he issued a strong call for further change--and chided the bar for publicly minimizing the need for reform.

“The State Bar is prone to excessive spates of self-congratulations,” Fellmeth wrote. It is “regrettably likely to focus on the deserved acknowledgement of progress to dampen the equally important need for further reform. In point of fact, in terms of bottom-line performance by attorneys, we are still in a state of crisis.”

Among other things, Fellmeth urged the bar to:

- Ease its rules of confidentiality to allow disclosure to consumers of any malpractice or fraud charges, contempt of court orders, court-imposed sanctions or criminal arrests against an attorney.

- Seek legislation requiring malpractice insurance for all attorneys; 25% of the practicing lawyers in the state do not have such insurance.

- Tackle the problem of attorney incompetence. “The bar neither assures competence meaningfully nor disciplines incompetence,” the report said, noting that the only barrier to the profession is the bar examination.

- Search for ways to deal with “attorney deceit,” particularly in civil cases. “The level of attorney dishonesty in representations to the court, in promises to clients (and in) dealings with adverse counsel . . . is embarrassing,” he said.

Fellmeth told of his “unsettling experience” in listening to callers to the bar’s toll-free complaint number. The bar receives about 75,000 calls about lawyers annually--roughly two for every three attorneys in the state.

State Bar President John M. Seitman of San Diego welcomed the report, saying that Fellmeth “has now confirmed that the State Bar’s turnaround has been truly unique, and that we today have the finest attorney discipline system in the nation.”

However, a spokeswoman for a consumer group often critical of the bar said the report confirmed that the California lawyer-discipline system “still fails to meet consumer needs.”

“The discipline system may be operating like a well-oiled machine,” said Deborah Chalfie, legislative director for HALT (Help Abolish Legal Tyranny). “But that machine is still spitting out the vast majority of consumer complaints, and lawyers are still calling all the shots. They’re just doing it more quickly.”