Letters to the Editor: No surprise that the State Bar disproportionately disciplines Black lawyers

To the editor: I can personally relate to the article on the California State Bar’s disproportionate discipline of Black attorneys.

In 1976, as a young Black attorney and among the first with a solo office in a high rise in Century City, I endured an ordeal for which many white attorneys with similar charges received short suspensions or a public reprimand.

After paying a $10,000 retainer to a major criminal law firm, I was advised to resign with charges pending for using $35,000 of a client’s settlement funds to pay my overhead. The bar committee, made up of white guys from major law firms, was prepared to disbar me.

With a mea culpa, I resigned. I have lived since then with deep remorse for my conduct and its results on my family.

William Hill, Sherman Oaks

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To the editor: While your article included the fact that the State Bar was the first and only known licensing agency to study this topic and mentioned the nuanced underlying factors believed to contribute to the disparities, readers may infer from the headline that intentional discrimination was the reason for the disparity.

In fact, the study did not identify intentional discrimination as the reason for the disparities.

Since 2019, the State Bar has been working on solutions to address these issues. Your article mentioned one such effort, which a volunteer group at the State Bar has been working on for more than a year: a pilot appointed-counsel program for lower-income attorneys facing State Bar investigations. That and other proposals will go before our Board of Trustees in January.

In addition, the State Bar adopted other suggestions stemming from the 2019 study. To limit the potential that disparities in older closed complaints might skew current charging decisions, we have archived more than 500,000 such closed complaints.

We also have been encouraging respondents to retain counsel, and we now regularly provide helpful information about client trust account management to attorneys who have been reported for minor bank overdrafts. We plan to do more, including conducting a follow-up study in 2024.

I am proud to lead an organization willing to take a hard look at itself. And while I appreciate The Times’ reporting, I want to clarify that not only is the State Bar at the forefront of proactively identifying racial disparities in its discipline system, but also that we are taking vigorous action to address the factors that contribute to those disparities.

Leah T. Wilson, San Francisco

The writer is executive director of the State Bar of California.

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To the editor: The State Bar has been credibly accused of corruption, incompetence and now racial bias in its discipline of attorneys. I wonder how long before the State Bar would revoke my license to practice law if I was accused of the same violations.

Herb Fox, Santa Barbara

The writer is an attorney.