Bar Dues Will Drop by $10, Legal Services Will Get $10 Million

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 07 No. 2011 Pg. 02
• Date: 01 July 2011
• Publication year: 2011
• Pages: 02
• Year: 2011
• topic: Business of Law

California Bar Journal 2011.

CBJ - July 2011 #02. Bar dues will drop by $10, legal services will get $10 million

The California Lawyer
July 2011

Bar dues will drop by $10, legal services will get $10 million

By Nancy McCarthy
Staff Writer

A State Bar fee bill that includes a $10 rebate for all California attorneys and a potential $10 million windfall for the state's beleaguered legal services programs was headed for a vote in Sacramento after the Assembly Judiciary Committee approved the amended fee measure last month. The bill, SB 163, includes changes to bar governance as well, but the board of governors directed bar leaders to ask lawmakers to make several modifications. By an 11-6 vote, the full bar board backed SB 163, prior to the amendments that mean an estimated $8.4 million reduction in the agency's general fund over two years.

Executive Director Joe Dunn told the judiciary committee that the board's operations committee voted unanimously to support the amended bill, authored by Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Napa. It goes to the Assembly floor next.

Evans touted the increase in funding for legal services as "a very important provision" for programs whose IOLTA funding has been "decimated."...