The State Bar Of California And Their Policy On Lawyer Referrals.
Updated: Jan 21
How to find the best California lawyer using a certified lawyer referral service.
The California State Bar is California's official licensing agency for attorneys. It is responsible for administering lawyers' admission to the practice of law, reviewing professional misconduct allegations, prescribing reasonable supervision, authorizing attorney-member fees, and financially distributing amounts paid to finance non-profit legal agencies through attorney trust accounts.
The Supreme Court of California is directly liable, but its trustees are now appointed by the Supreme Court, the California Legislature, and the California Governor. Both admissions and disbarment of attorneys shall be provided as guidelines of the State Bar, which the Supreme Court shall then annually ratify.
History Of The State Bar Of California
On July 29, 1927, when the California State Bar Act went into effect, the State Bar was legally established. With over 190.000 active members as of October 2020, the State Bar of California is the largest in the United States. It is centralized in San Francisco, with a Los Angeles branch office. The San Francisco offices of the State Bar are located on several floors of this office complex.
The State Bar was a "unified" bar at its inception, in which disciplinary positions and more conventional "bar association" positions were merged into one body. The State Bar was divided into two bodies in 2018-2019: a stand-alone body became California's State Bar.
A voluntary association referred to as the California Bar Association was the precursor to the State Bar. Judge Jeremiah F. Sullivan, who first suggested the idea at the Santa Barbara Convention of the CBA in September 1917, and provided the CBA with a copy of a Quebec statute as a model, was the leader of the effort to create an integrated (official) bar.
Setting up an integrated bar in California took nearly ten years. BASF committees were organized by Sullivan, who was also the President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, to draft and recommend suitable legislation. Both BASF-drafted bills died in 1919 and 1921 in the California Legislature.
Sullivan eventually convinced the CBA to take action on his initiative in 1922; the CBA proposed a new bill, lobbied for their support by lawyers and politicians across the state, and convinced the Legislature in 1925 to approve the bill. Governor Friend Richardson's pocket veto destroyed the bill.
The CBA tried again, after two more years of lobbying. On March 16, 1927, Governor C. C. Young signed the State Bar Act into law. The State Bar Commission was appointed by the Supreme Court of California on May 12, 1927, which created the State Bar of California as an operating body. The State Bar sent out registration forms immediately (demanding a $3 pre-organization fee as approved by the Act) to all California lawyers. Every attorney was given identification numbers when they registered; State Bar Number 1 went to Chief Justice William H. Waste, in particular.
By October 1, 1927, a total of 7,872 attorneys had enrolled. These attorneys then voted by mail for the first Governors' Board of the State Bar. The State Bar organized a pre-organization dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on November 17, followed by the next day's formal organizational meeting. Nine thousand six hundred two lawyers had registered by the time the dinner began. During the State Bar's organizational meeting the next morning, the CBA conceded to its next successor ending its corporate activities.
Can The State Bar Of California Refer Me To An Attorney?
No, the State Bar of California is the regulatory body for admission and discipline of California attorneys. The State Bar is not a an attorney referral service and does not offer any legal advice or guide someone requesting referral to a particular lawyer or conducting a search for a specific case for an attorney.