October 2005

Executive's Report:

The Year Ahead — What’s in Store for Bar Year 2005-2006

by M. Janice Michels, WSBA Executive Director

As we launch Bar Year 2005-2006, I want to let you know what you’ll see and hear the WSBA working on. Every year seems able to deliver its own surprises, and some of our best-laid plans can get diverted, but as we enter the new year, here’s what I see ahead.

The Board of Governors

The WSBA has five new governors on the Board: Liza Burke, Eric de los Santos, Doug Lawrence, Salvadore Mungia, and Kristal Wiitala. This group represents many vanguards of diversity and interests, and changes the profile of the Board in valuable and important ways. The Board is now 36 percent female (five women); 28 percent diverse (four persons representing one or more elements of diversity); 21 percent Young Lawyers (three governors meet the “Young Lawyer” criteria); 43 percent (six governors) practice in small firms; 21 percent (three) practice in larger firms; and governors represent government, legal services, corporate counsel, and plaintiff and defense counsel. We have a new president, Brooke Taylor, who brings a small-town, rural-county perspective, and a new president-elect, Ellen Conedera Dial, only the third female president-elect in our history. This is a remarkable board for its representativeness, interests, and backgrounds. The Board will meet eight times around the state and continue listening sessions with local bars while in their area.  The Board will also continue its work in countless committees, task forces, and workgroups, and as liaisons to the sections and committees. This is the Board and officers who will deal with the following significant issues in 2005-2006:

Legal Technicians

The possibility of licensing nonlawyers to do isolated segments of legal work has generated a great deal of interest among members, the Court, the legal-services community, and the nonlawyer legal community. Regardless of what position the WSBA takes on this matter, there will be countervailing pressures — the issue promises to keep the year exciting.

RPC Revisions

There is likely to be a whole-scale revision to the RPCs to conform them closer to the ABA Model Rules, which will require education, explanation, and possible refinements. With the chair of the Ethics 2003 Committee, Ellen Conedera Dial, now the WSBA president-elect, the Board is in an excellent position to deal with any exigencies around these new rules.

Medical Malpractice Initiatives

This is an issue the WSBA did not choose, but one that has been thrust on us. The Board and members have grave concerns about the constitutionality of some provisions in I-330 and two of the provisions in I-336. Regardless of the content of the initiatives and individual members’ opinions of the initiatives, we all recognize the damage to the profession that the campaigns may cause. The WSBA’s work will be to deliver a message that is non-defensive — a defensive posture would be futile, and our goal is to help the public understand the facts behind the rhetoric that may surface in the flurry of the campaign. We all anticipate having to be alert and responsive because, regardless of what the voters choose to do, something will need to be worked out in the Legislature if they both fail; or, if either or both pass, in the courts.
 
WSBA Headquarters Move to Puget Sound Plaza

Characterized simply as “The Move,” the relocation of the WSBA office will take significant time and energy in 2006. We aim to achieve the correct balances of good working space for staff, flexible professional conference space, and a convenient and welcoming atmosphere for members. The Board’s Facilities Committee, WSBA staff, and newly selected project manager Doug Swan Associates will make it happen!

Further Expansion of Member Services

On the table for progress in 2006 are adding to the Casemaker database and promoting this no-fee service to members; implementing sponsored disability insurance; and investigating, with our new sponsored liability and medical insurance broker, a true group medical insurance plan rather then simply a sponsored plan.

Justice in Jeopardy — Phase Two

The achievements of 2005 were pivotal in principle, and we need to continue to pursue adequate funding for court operations, indigent criminal defense, and civil legal services. We know what is needed, we have developed a good network of support, and we have an effective infrastructure under the leadership of Chief Justice Alexander. We must maintain our momentum and stick to the principle that justice requires adequate general-fund support.

Public Defense Recommendations

The WSBA Committee on Public Defense was created to plan remedies to the findings of defense inadequacies from the Blue Ribbon Panel on Public Defense, co-chaired by Marc Boman of the Perkins Coie firm and former Chief Justice Robert Utter. The Committee will begin making recommendations for Board consideration in the areas of revised standards, non-legislative mechanisms for process improvements, enforcement of defense standards, death penalty process revisions, and elected official education on the right to counsel. We must continue to champion adequate defense.

Promoting Diversity

The WSBA has taken many significant steps toward ensuring diversity in the legal profession and its leadership. We are working to be inclusive and culturally competent to all members and their representative organizations, but fledgling relationships can be fragile. The Board, officers, and WSBA staff will embrace diversity training, promote contact and familiarity with all types of diversity, and consider all the recommendations presented on ways to eliminate bias and oppression and promote truly equal treatment.

Public Education on the Tenets of Our Democracy

The Council for Public Legal Education has been working for four years to restore civics to the public school curriculum, but this long-range solution to the public’s misunderstanding of key democratic concepts such as separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, and the rule of law, needs more immediate and repetitive education. President Taylor writes (in his column on page 17) about the effort he intends to mobilize, and how every member and every judge can join in this essential task.

The Budget

The Bar Year will operate on an adopted budget of $16.5 million. Revenue is made up of 60 percent license fees; 15 percent CLE; and 25 percent other revenue such as bar exam fees, service fees, and sales. This revenue covers expenses of admission, discipline, regulation, continuing legal education, member services, and overhead, while maintaining necessary emergency reserves and a moving-expense fund totaling approximately $1.3 million. As in the past two years, this is an inflation-only budget and the Board adopted a license-fee plan for the next four years which continues to operate on this premise. Full, detailed breakdowns of the WSBA’s actual revenue and expenses, as well as other fiscal information about WSBA, can be reviewed on the WSBA website, www.wsba.org.

WSBA Executive and Deputy Director, Department Directors, and Staff

The Bar staff works to maintain the WSBA’s core activities and supports the Board of Governors in dealing with the issues outlined above. The WSBA’s regulatory functions are directed by General Rule 12 and include the day-to-day work of the regulation of the practice of law, which includes admissions, licensing, discipline, and mandatory continuing legal education compliance. These functions consume the majority of the WSBA’s resources and cannot be compromised or curtailed. The WSBA also provides other important services to members, such as the Lawyers’ Assistance Program, Law Office Management Assistance Program, ethics call-in line, and continuing legal education. The WSBA also handles media relations, provides publications and brochures to the public, supports and coordinates bar leader programs, maintains a comprehensive website (more than 5,000 pages), sponsors the Access to Justice Board and its work, promotes diversity in the profession and leadership, and administers the sections. To support all these activities, we also need administration and technology services.

WSBA staff, functioning somewhat like the executive branch to the Board of Governors, has the internal goal of making the WSBA the best integrated bar in the country. In recent years, the WSBA has been recognized as a leader in innovative services to members, offering a continuum of disciplinary services including consumer affairs to resolve developing lawyer-client problems before they surface as grievances, diversion of less-serious misconduct to remedial services like the Law Office Management Assistance Program or ethics training, and implementing member benefit programs such as the WSBA Leadership Institute, the diversity advocate position, and effective governance techniques.

We Can and We Will Do It!

Some see the WSBA as a huge ship whose direction is not easily redirected or whose course is not easily changed. Others consider the WSBA necessary but not particularly relevant to members. On the other hand, the Board of Governors and WSBA staff are committed to listening to members and being responsive to their concerns. Together, we treasure our ability to protect the public and the reputation of lawyers, our member goodwill, sound fiscal position, and our solid relationship with the Supreme Court. Working with the many volunteer leaders, we’re setting off on a year focused on diversity and cultural competence, starship regulatory services, and educating the public about the role of the judicial branch in maintaining our democracy. We have the resources to do this important work, tackle new issues, and work toward public education about the rule of law and role of the judicial branch. The Board, officers, and the WSBA staff look forward to our year together; it promises to be another great one!   

Executive Director Jan Michels can be reached at janm@wsba.org.