Raising the State Bar to a Higher Level of Service

After two terms as state attorney general and a run for governor, John Van de Kamp will become president of the State Bar of California this month.

While other lawyers have gained recognition in the position, sometimes using it as a springboard to judgeships and other prominent positions, Van de Kamp said he simply wants to serve the legal community and the public.

“I’m not ready to go out and play golf for the rest of my life. I’d rather do something constructive,” he said. Van de Kamp, 68, who was a vice president on the bar’s board of governors, will be sworn in Oct. 9 at the board’s annual meeting in Monterey, Calif.

“Lawyers are part of the glue of American society,” he said. “When the profession and the courts get respect from everyone, everyone is better off.”

Harvey Saferstein, a former state bar president, said he was impressed by Van de Kamp’s commitment.

“I think it’s wonderful for John to do this. To take on the obligation and the stress says a lot about John.”

Van de Kamp’s experience in a public office will help him to improve the law profession’s image with the public -- a difficult goal, Saferstein said.

Another former state bar president, Alan Rothenberg, now chairman of First Century Bank, said Van de Kamp’s demeanor and experience will help him reach that goal.

“He’s very low-key, unusually so for a person with that kind of public background,” Rothenberg said. “He’s incredibly ethical and honorable. Because he has the respect of the public, people who are antagonistic toward lawyers will at least be willing to listen to him.”

Van de Kamp, whose uncles sold the family bakeries in the 1950s and whose family today owns a chain of Lawry’s restaurants, is a counsel to the Los Angeles office of the law firm Dewey Ballantine LLP. He was state attorney general for eight years, until 1991. He established the first federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles in 1971 and held the position for four years before becoming a district attorney.

In 1990, he ran for governor, but lost the heated race in the Democratic primary to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Van de Kamp has plans for the bar. Not only does he want to improve the public image of lawyers, but he wants lawyers to feel better about the work they do.

Van de Kamp has four priorities: public protection, member benefits, access to better legal representation for the poor and middle class, and diversity in the profession. He said improvements in each area will strengthen relations between lawyers and the public.

The first priority, public protection, involves disciplining members of the bar who fail to act professionally or to provide adequate representation. Van de Kamp has listened to hours of calls to the bar’s hotline and heard too many complaints about lawyers who don’t return calls. “That should not be a complaint. That’s just basic, bread-and-butter practice,” he said. “And if someone is ripping people off, we’ll put him out of business.”

He also said that protecting the public means providing lawyers with better member benefits, including continuing education and tools needed to better represent their clients. That means teaching new lawyers not just legal ethics, but also how to run a law office or develop a professional attitude. Van de Kamp said he also hopes to use the bar’s group buying power to negotiate for better malpractice insurance rates and deals for office supplies, computers and research services to help lawyers cut their costs.

Van de Kamp said he wants to encourage more lawyers to offer their services for free to people who typically can’t afford high-powered attorneys. He said it’s in the best interest of the public and the legal profession.

“Lawyers are critical to people,” he said. “The trouble is that people can’t call on lawyers as often as they probably should just because of the economics.”

Part of the problem could be convincing busy attorneys to donate their time. But Van de Kamp said that’s easier than people might expect.

“People don’t realize that lawyers are very giving of their time,” he said. “Obviously there’s limits to what they can do, but there’s nothing more satisfying than helping people.”

Possibly the most challenging part of his goal is increasing diversity in the bar, but Van de Kamp said it is necessary.

“Our profession needs to basically have a face that’s fairly typical of the general community,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

The state bar does not officially keep track of the percentage of minorities among its 196,969 members, but Van de Kamp said he wants to increase representation of African Americans and Latinos especially. He hopes to encourage more lawyers to be mentors, to visit high schools and colleges and to help law schools better prepare minorities for the state bar exam, which is considered one of the toughest in the nation.

Better education and preparation will help minorities into the bar without changing its high admission standards, he said.

“When people are well represented, the wheels of justice move a lot better,” Van de Kamp said. “Lawyers do an awful lot of good things that people don’t know about, and I’d like to highlight those.”