Politics, Government & Business in California's Inland Empire
By Alexei Koseff
akoseff@sacbee.com
Published: May 19, 2018 – 11:38 AM
Updated: May 20, 2018 – 10:15 AM
Only a quarter of applicants passed the California bar exam in its most recent sitting, the State Bar of California announced this week, a record low for the test that lawyers must successfully complete to practice in the state.
Observations on California and its politics
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
May 14, 2017 – 4:00 PM
California has a rogue’s gallery of malfunctioning state agencies, with the Board of Equalization the current poster child for disarray and miscreant behavior.
By Bob Egelko
May 2, 2017 Updated: May 2, 2017 2:43pm
Prosecutors who withhold evidence that might have helped a criminal defendant will soon face the prospect of punishment by the State Bar of California, under rules already in place in every other state.
AP Nation / World
By Sudhin Thanawala
Associated Press
Mar 10, 2017 – 6:56 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The State Bar of California approved an ethics rule that would subject lawyers to discipline for having sex with their clients.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
February 7, 2017 – 6:03 PM
The legislative skirmishing over the future of the State Bar appears to be nearing an amicable resolution.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
January 8, 2017 – 4:00 PM
The 2016 legislative session ended four-plus months ago with a cross-Capitol stalemate on the future of the State Bar, the agency that oversees the legal profession.
By Sudhin Thanawala
November 28, 2016
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The nation’s largest state bar association is overhauling ethics rules for attorneys for the first time in 30 years, and some lawyers are unhappy about a proposal that would open them up to discipline for having sex with clients.
By Dan Walters
Observations on California and its politics
dwalters@sacbee.com
November 28, 2016 – 12:01 AM
While other, more pejorative, terms could be used to describe California’s massive legal system these days, let’s just say it’s in disarray, and count the ways.
Capitol Alert
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
November 18, 2016 – 10:30 AM
Reacting to a legislative stalemate over the State Bar’s future, the California Supreme Court late Thursday authorized the legal profession’s regulatory agency to collect $297 in dues from each state-licensed attorney next year – enough to cover its basic functions but less than it wanted.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
October 17, 2016 – 3:13 PM
The state Legislature adjourned on Aug. 31 without passing the annual bill authorizing the State Bar to collect “dues” from the state’s attorneys to finance its operations.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 – 10:15 a.m.
New State Bar rules of conduct have been adopted to address rampant prosecutorial misconduct in California.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
September 12, 2016 – 9:54 PM
Political and legal wrangling over the fate of the State Bar took another turn Monday.
Capitol Alert
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
September 2, 2016 – 10:49 AM
Wednesday night’s legislative stalemate on giving the State Bar permission to continue collecting dues from the state’s lawyers and, more controversially, overhauling its organization and operations, is already creating fallout.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
September 1, 2016 – 5:16 PM
The biennial legislative session that ended very early Thursday morning amassed a very substantial record of action – some positive, some negative and much whose real effects won’t be known for years.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
August 25, 2016 – 4:27 PM
As the Legislature begins the last few days of its biennial session, hundreds of measures are pending – not counting, of course, “mushroom bills” that will sprout in the dead of night and pass before anyone outside the Capitol can react.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
August 2, 2016 – 4:28 PM
It’s been painfully evident for years, if not decades, that the State Bar – the quasi-public organization that licenses lawyers and is supposed regulate their conduct – is an institutional disaster zone.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
July 4, 2016 – 6:39 PM
Somehow, you knew it was too good to be true.
It’s been evident for years that the State Bar – the quasi-public agency that licenses lawyers – is an organizational mess.
John Myers
June 2, 2016 – 4:50 P.M.
Two days of private negotiations among lawmakers resulted Thursday in brand-new legislation that would change the State Bar of California’s governing board and examine the idea of a major overhaul of the quasi-state agency.
Capitol Alert
By Jeremy B. White
jwhite@sacbee.com
May 31, 2016 – 3:39 PM
In a clear rebuke to California’s system for regulating attorneys, the Assembly on Tuesday decisively rejected a bill that sought to overhaul the State Bar.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
April 28, 2016 – 2:51 PM
Joe Dunn’s ears must have been burning Tuesday.
Jason Song
December 25, 2015
For the second year in a row, the percentage of people who successfully took the summer California bar exam fell to a historic low, with less than 47% passing, according to state statistics. Last year, only 48.6% of those who took the exam made the grade, the first time the passage rate dipped below half in nearly a decade.
Kathy Robertson, Senior Staff Writer
Sacramento Business Journal
Oct 9, 2015 – 2:57pm PDT
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the State Bar of California’s annual dues bill, allowing the agency to collect dues and stay in business another year.
Kathy Robertson
Sacramento Business Journal
Jun 18, 2015 – 1:07pm PDT
The State Bar of California does not consistently protect the public from bad lawyers and lacks financial accountability, according to a state audit released Thursday.
By SUDHIN THANAWALA Associated Press
Jan. 11, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The former executive director of the California organization charged with rooting out lawyers who cheat clients or botch cases says he was fired after reporting that disciplinary files were deliberately being removed to make its case backlog appear smaller.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
12/08/2014 7:13 PM
The state licenses and regulates dozens of professions and occupations – doctors, nurses, accountants, engineers, architects, dentists, contractors, barbers, cosmetologists, just to name some.
Lawyers are conspicuously absent from that list.
By Maura Dolan
December 6, 2014
The agency that regulates California’s lawyers is once again beset with conflict, riddled by accusations involving expense accounts and ethics.
By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
11/13/2014 12:54 PM
Former Democratic state Sen. Joe Dunn is suing his former employer, the State Bar of California, alleging that the bar’s board wrongfully fired him as executive director after he reported illegal activities and ethical breaches by high-ranking officials in the quasi-governmental agency.
Friday, May 16, 2014 – 10:00 a.m.
The State Bar of California has closed an investigation into several lawyers of former Upland-based law firm Lackie, Dammeier, McGill and Ethir.
The following article was published in Friday’s edition of the
San Bernardino County Sentinel.
Documents implicate DA Ramos in extortion and kickback scheme (Update -1-)
By Mark Gutglueck, The Sentinel (www.sbsentinel.com)
Posted on April 25, 2014
(April 25) The surfacing of long-buried criminal court documents indicates San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos withheld crucial information from a panel of Superior Court judges and county lawyers who provided the county board of supervisors with a persuasive recommendation to give attorney Earl Carter and his law firm an exclusive $20 million contract to perform indigent defense work at all of the county’s courthouses.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2014 – 12:00 am
The State Bar is something of an odd duck – a quasi-private, quasi-public entity that simultaneously regulates the legal profession and acts as a trade association and political advocate for lawyers.