Executive Committee: Message from the Chair
| Publication year | 2017 |
| Author | Jim Hill |
Jim Hill
My term as Chair of the Business Law Section (BLS) is coming to a close in September 2017, as I pen this final message to you. As this past bar year began in October 2016, the State Bar had been placed under threat of financial calamity and its sixteen voluntary sections, including the BLS, were in a state of confusion about their own future. The state legislature had just failed to pass a dues authorization bill. Not only was the State Bar facing funding shortfalls, the sections faced an uncertain future, as their source of voluntary dues revenues, essential for survival, was in peril. Without access to voluntary dues and substantial reserves, built up over the years, many questioned whether the BLS could continue to provide products and services to its members at the level they had come to expect.
Thankfully, in late 2016, following submission of an emergency petition to the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, albeit without an annual dues bill from the legislature, the State Bar was granted authorization, by order of the supreme court, to send out billing statements for mandatory dues to all California attorneys, which was done for the first time by electronic billing. We owe thanks to all of you BLS members for continuing your membership in the BLS. We all owe even more accolades and notes of appreciation to the scores of members of the BLS Executive Committee and our fifteen substantive law standing committees for persevering and stepping up, to deliver you and other California lawyers and the public at large, timely and meaningful content in the way of educational programs, scholarly and practical publications, and legislative analysis, comments, and proposals.
While the BLS Standing Committees were hard at work delivering substantive business law content, many of the past chairs and other leaders of the BLS stepped up as volunteers and advisors to help shape and shepherd legislation reforms that ensure the sections will not just survive, but will thrive, in a new structure as a nonprofit, voluntary association separate from the State Bar (which itself is being restructured by reform legislation embodied in enabling legislation known as Senate Bill 36).
Senate Bill 36 appears likely to become law. It will transfer the sixteen sections (with more than 60,000 members) and the California Young Lawyers Association (with 48,000 members) into what will become the second largest voluntary association of lawyers in the nation, smaller only than the venerable American Bar Association.
The Legislature, with the support of the State Bar and the sections, determined that the sections, including their members, intellectual property, and money reserves, will be separated from the State Bar regulatory agency under which they have operated for decades. Going forward, the sections will operate as a private, IRC section 501(c)(6) nonprofit entity, and will leave a restructured State Bar as a quasi-governmental entity to concentrate on its core public protection missions of admissions and discipline.
The sections' approximately $6.4 million in cash reserves and intellectual property, including CLE materials and member lists, will go to the new sections entity. Membership in the new organization will be voluntary. It will not be part of the State Bar, and it will receive no funding from State Bar mandatory membership fees— though the legislation does provide that a membership check-off will continue on dues statements for California attorneys. In August, Senate Bill 36 was passed through the Assembly Judiciary Committee in modified form by a unanimous vote, as was the case in the Senate. Assuming a final version is passed by both houses, it is expected to reach the Governor's desk and be signed into law not later than October 15, 2017.
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The good news is that, after separation, you will continue to receive all of the services and benefits you have come to expect from your section. The better news is that, without the regulatory limitations and costs that came as part of being in an agency of the State of California, we believe that you will receive better service, have greater say about how the sections function, and be far more satisfied with how this new entity will serve you.
Consider, for example, how much more efficient the sections' committees will be (again) once the limits on electronic communications and other meetings among members are lifted. Imagine how a modern, dynamic website and social media on which you, the members, can post directly will improve communications and member interaction...
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