State Bar’s Use of Dues for Lobbying Was Illegal, Judge Rules

The State Bar of California improperly spent part of its dues on political and ideological activities, a judge has ruled.

Mandatory bar dues may only be spent on activities related to the licensing and discipline of attorneys and on administrative costs, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Morrison England Jr. said.

Other bar activities, such as lobbying the Legislature or Congress, or sponsoring ethnic and other outreach programs and social programs such as mentoring troubled youths, should be financed by voluntary dues, the judge ruled Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed in 1991 on behalf of 40 members of the state bar by Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest law firm.

Most issues in the lawsuit were also raised by former Gov. Pete Wilson when he vetoed legislation in 1997 renewing the bar’s authority to impose mandatory annual dues of $450.

That led to a shutdown of most activities of the bar, which now has a skeleton operation supported by partial dues of $173 ordered last year by the state Supreme Court. A bill pending before the Legislature would restore dues for 133,000 bar members to $395 annually.

The lawsuit was delayed until this year by a series of bar appeals that went all the way to the state Supreme Court, which ruled that the plaintiffs had standing to sue.

Attorney Stephen R. McCutchen of the Pacific Legal Foundation described the ruling as a major victory upholding the right to “refuse to subsidize political and ideological activities, free speech activities of those with whom they disagree.”

But Ray Marshall of San Francisco, president of the State Bar of California, said the suit “examined activities of the bar in 1991, not 1999,” and that almost everything the suit ordered has already been done by the bar or will be done by the bill before the Legislature.

McCutchen said a hearing will determine what refunds or other funds might be awarded, but he said that was a very minor issue compared to the principle of limiting how dues are spent and that it would be a minimal amount affecting only the 40 plaintiffs.