A new deal

• Author: Lee Rawles
• Pages: 59-60

your Aba

EDITED BY LEE RAWLES

LEE.RAWLES@AMERICANBAR.ORG

ANNUAL MEETING REPORT || Your ABA

A NEW DEAL

Members to see lower dues, more benefi ts

By Lee Rawles

The majority of ABA members

will be seeing lower dues for fi scal

year 2020 under a new membership

model approved at the ABA Annual

Meeting in August.

Under the new structure, there

will be fi ve price points for the basic

level of dues-paying membership

for fi scal year 2020, which begins in

September 2019:

• $75 for new bar admittees, para-

legals and lawyers through their fi rst

four years of practice.

• $150 for solo practitioners,

retirees, government attorneys, law-

yers in fi rms with fi ve or fewer attor-

neys, judges, international lawyers

and lawyers who have been in prac-

tice starting with their fi fth year

and through their ninth. Members

currently known as “associates”—

nonlawyers, legal professionals

without U.S. licenses and students—

would also fall into this category

and be reclassifi ed as “a liated

professionals.”

• $250 for lawyers in years 10

through 14 of practice.

• $350 for lawyers in years 15

through 19 of practice.

• $450 for lawyers in practice for at

least 20 years.

If a member fi ts under multiple

categories, they’ll qualify for the least

expensive dues amount. For example,

a solo who has practiced more than

20 years would pay $150, and a gov-

ernment attorney in their third year

of practice would be charged $75.

Membership will continue to be

free for students. Currently, new

bar admittees are given a year of

free membership, but that would

end. Others could see increases of

about $5 per year. But the major-

ity of ABA members would end up

paying less, with reductions from

about $20 to more than $300.

There will continue to be addi-

tional charges for joining most

individual sections and forums;

but in another major change, it

will be free for all members to join

the Law Practice Division and

the Solo, Small Firm and General

Practice Division, colloquially

known as GPSolo. Membership

in these two divisions would be

opt-in.

In Resolution 177 and an

accompanying bylaw amend-

ment, 11-12, the House pro-

vided the approval for the new

dues structure as part of the new

membership model approved by

the Board of Governors.

INCREASED VALUE

The new proposal seeks not only

to lower the cost of ABA member-

ship for most members but also to

increase the value of that mem-

bership. To that end, much of

the ABA-produced material

now publicly available will be

put behind a members-only paywall.

At the same time, other content that

members may have had to pay addi-

tional fees for will be made available

without cost, such as many LPD and

GPSolo materials and an in-

creased o ering of free

CLE. The Center

OCTOBER 2018 ABA JOURNAL || 59

PHOTOS BY KATHY ANDERSON