Lobbyists’ Reporting Law Tightened : Ethics: Lawyers or their clients will have to provide data. Move is an attempt to bypass a ruling that attorneys cited in refusing to reveal actions.

After nearly four years of delays, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday refined a lobbying law so that more lawyers will have to report their attempts to influence city government, but most neighborhood groups and nonprofit organizations will not.

The council unanimously passed the first substantial revisions in the city’s lobbying law since it was passed in 1967.

The changes are designed to require the highest-paid advocates to report their activities and compensation to the city’s Ethics Commission.

“The importance is that the public will know the forces that are attempting to affect the operation of city government,” said Edwin Guthman, a member of the city’s Ethics Commission.

“Somewhere around $10 million is spent a year, that we know about, to influence decisions at City Hall,” Guthman added. “We think there is a lot more that we don’t know about and this will help get to that.”

Ethics Commission officials said the most important change in the law will be one that requires lawyers to report all their lobbying activities, either directly or through their clients.

Although many lawyers reported their lobbying and compensation under the old law, others refused to file reports with the Ethics Commission. They said that filing the reports would violate their confidential relationship with their clients. They cited a 1970 Supreme Court ruling on the city’s law that said lawyers did not have to disclose their lobbying efforts in “quasi-judicial proceedings”--which was interpreted by some lawyers to include most hearings involving land-use permits.

The new law seeks to circumvent that legal objection by requiring clients, rather than the lawyers, to report the lobbying.

The Ethics Commission issues quarterly reports that show which clients paid lobbyists the most.

“We think this will overcome any legal challenge,” said Ben Bycel, executive director of the Ethics Commission. “Now everyone is on an even playing field and everyone will have to report. It moves the illumination of lobbying activities up from an 80-watt light bulb to a 200-watt light bulb.”

Lawyers who have objected to reporting requirements argued that disclosing how much they are paid does not serve the public.

Benjamin M. Reznik, a lawyer who frequently represents clients in planning cases, said the reporting of lawyers’ fees can invade the privacy of clients. The public would know enough if lawyers simply reported whom they represented, he said.

“Everyone knows that I am there at City Hall as a paid representative for someone,” Reznik said. “How much I am being paid is totally irrelevant.”

Despite the tighter requirements on lawyers, the revisions will lead to a net reduction in the number of reports filed with the Ethics Commission. That is because the council voted to only require lobbyists to file reports if they make more than $4,000 a quarter for lobbying at City Hall.

About 80 lobbyists are expected to file reports under the new system, compared to the more than 300 who file now. Many small groups and individuals who are paid little or nothing for their lobbying efforts will no longer file reports.