Keeping State’s Lawyers on Their Toes

Stretching out his arms and bending in unison with a group of fellow lawyers in business suits, 73-year-old Reese Taylor Jr. was happy to participate in an exercise class offered recently at the State Bar of California convention.

The Long Beach transportation attorney said he and his peers were there to reduce stress. They were also there to receive an hour’s worth of credit toward the state bar’s requirement for continuing their legal education.

“I get stressed from time to time, and I suppose the exercises are helpful,” said Taylor, former chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Across the state, 35,000 lawyers like Taylor face a Feb. 1 deadline for completing 25 hours of legal education, the required amount every three years. About 15,000 more need to complete 61 hours.

Some have been steadily accumulating credit-hours and already have more than enough. For others, the race is on.

To meet the deadline, lawyers across the state are doing everything from the mundane to the creative, from sitting through tedious seminars locally to attending workshops in Hawaii to flexing muscles and deep breathing--as Taylor and others did at the convention in Anaheim--in order to hang on to their law licenses.

Rhonda Rauch Miller, a family law practitioner in Encino, plans to attend the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn.’s “MCLE [Minimum Continuing Legal Education] Marathon” next month and power through three days of lectures--on topics ranging from intellectual property to laws regarding “fractional aircraft ownership”--in order to collect 25 credit-hours.

David Nisson, a criminal defense and personal injury attorney in Tustin, recently returned from Maui, where he loaded up on course work hours on such topics as PowerPoint presentation skills, offered by Brea-based LawTalk, while vacationing with his family.

“Most lawyers are busy like me,” Nisson said. “We tend to put off MCLE until the last minute, and then we have to crunch it all in.”

Among those scrambling the most are lawyers who must complete 61 hours. Back when the state bar required 36 hours every three years, tens of thousands of lawyers decided to ignore the mandate after a state appellate court ruled that it violated equal protection laws. When the California Supreme Court reversed the ruling and upheld the program’s constitutionality, the state bar extended the deadline for the delinquent lawyers. For many, the new cutoff date is Feb. 1.

Some of those lawyers “are in panic mode right now,” said Irene Garcia Dolan, president of LawTalk. “They just hate the fact that the bar is making them do it.”

Since 1989, California has required continuing legal education, including mandatory courses on ethics, eliminating bias in the legal profession and preventing substance abuse or emotional distress. The program is intended to encourage attorneys to keep track of new legal developments and become better professionals.

“It’s really important. The law is constantly changing,” said Karen Nobumoto, president of the state bar. “I don’t think we’re ever beyond education.”

Of the 40 states that mandate continuing legal education, California has the lowest hourly requirement, which now stands at 25 every three years. Attorneys in Arizona, Louisiana and Texas must complete 15 hours every year.

California also asks less from its lawyers than other licensed professionals, according to a 2001 state bar report. The state mandates more continuing education from its social workers, speech pathologists, real estate brokers, barbers, cosmetologists, pest control operators and hearing aid dispensers.

But even 8 1/3 hours a year seems onerous to some lawyers, especially those who don’t work for the government or large law firms that provide free training in-house.

“The bulk of the hours, I find it a waste of time,” said one San Fernando Valley attorney who asked not to be identified. “There’s a lot of attorneys whom I’ve observed, who sit in the back and do other work and turn in the paper that says they did the hours. It’s a joke. . . . People talk; they’re reading newspapers.”

Most attorneys support continuing education as a concept. According to a state bar survey last year, only 8% of lawyers believed that the program should be abolished.

But many voice misgivings about the uneven quality of the course work and the astonishing ease of compliance.

The state bar permits up to six hours credit for course work aimed at preventing emotional distress--such as the stretching class. Bar officials recently proposed scrapping such course work and are seeking public feedback about it.

As much as Taylor enjoyed his exercise workshop, he is among those who support ending its legal education status. “As a requirement to keeping your bar license, that’s a bit of a stretch as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

There are many other easy ways to satisfy the requirement.

Legal periodicals often have articles accompanied by a quiz, such as the one on “reciprocal discovery in criminal cases” in a recent issue of the California Bar Journal. By mailing in the answer form with a $20 check payable to the state bar, any lawyer--even if he or she specializes in, say, drafting corporate contracts and never deals in criminal matters--can rake in an hour’s worth of credit.

Lawyers have also collected hours by dropping in on panel discussions on current events at their law school reunion, speeding through computerized courses and listening to speakers at local bar luncheons.

“You can sleep through a meeting and get a certificate [of compliance],” said Henry M. Bissell, an intellectual property attorney in Westchester.

Judy Johnson, executive director of the state bar, said compliance is based on “an honor system” in which lawyers turn in a signed form stating that they complied, and about 1% get audited. She believes most lawyers seek out meaningful course work, which can range from free events sponsored by local bar associations to exotic travel packages costing thousands of dollars when hotel, airfare and ski lift tickets are included.

The California bar divides its 139,000 active members into three groups with different deadlines for compliance. Two groups had their deadline earlier this year, and about 1,400 members were suspended for noncompliance. Bar officials say the 61-hour requirement could have been a factor.

Jerry Reopelle is among those who must complete 61 hours by Feb. 1. Come next week, the Irvine criminal defense lawyer will hole up for four days at a Palm Springs hotel for courses ranging from negotiation skills to ethics.

Requiring lawyers to continue their legal education is a good idea because it forces them to “take a refresher course,” Reopelle said. If they’re not forced to attend, he said, they might not. “I have to admit, I took a pass the last time around.”