Wilson Suggests Changes to Let State Bar Survive

Gov. Pete Wilson, whose veto last fall has brought the State Bar to the brink of bankruptcy, proposed letting it survive Friday but ending lawyers’ self-regulation by having his successor appoint their leaders.

Joined by the Legislature’s leading opponents of the bar, Wilson endorsed a plan that would drastically reduce lawyers’ dues and change their governance from a board elected mostly by lawyers to one appointed by the next governor and legislators.

The bar now “acts as a trade organization promoting the legal profession, while continuing to regulate and discipline attorneys--a dual responsibility that many of its own member attorneys call a conflict of interest,” said a statement issued by Wilson’s office.

The statement said Wilson’s plan would “end the abuses and place the State Bar on a solid foundation for the future.”

With its reserves nearly exhausted and its political influence at a low ebb, the bar has little room to maneuver. But San Diego attorney Marc Adelman, the organization’s president, said the proposal to change from elected to appointed leaders was unacceptable.

“There is no place for politics in the administration of justice,” he said. “If you have 160,000 lawyers electing their leadership, they’re going to elect on their integrity, professional skills, ability as a lawyer and ability to represent them. . . . If the board of governors are politically appointed, by the governor or others, we become an arm of the executive branch.”

He also said Wilson’s proposed dues level--$295 a year, compared with the current $458 and the bar’s negotiating proposal of $358--was too low to maintain an effective lawyer discipline system, the bar’s chief expenditure. But Adelman said Wilson’s proposal “gives us something to discuss with him.”

Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), author of a bill that would tightly limit bar operations under the current board, said Wilson’s proposal was probably the bar’s last hope.

“Right now the bar is stranded in the water,” he said. “The only vessel out there that can stay afloat, if any, is this.”

Noting that doctors are regulated by an appointed board, Morrow, an attorney, said, “If it’s good enough for the docs, it should be good enough for the lawyers.”

The bar, to which all California lawyers are required to belong, lost its sole source of income in October when Wilson vetoed its annual dues bill, saying that the bar had become bloated, arrogant and too involved in liberal politics.