BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 345
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Date of Hearing: August 30, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB 345 (Evans) - As Amended: August 21, 2013
Policy Committee:
JudiciaryVote:10-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill establishes attorney licensing fees for 2014.
Specifically, this bill:
1) Continues the annual State Bar membership fee at $315
for 2014. (When combined with other existing statutory
fees, the total annual dues next year for active membership
will be $390; reduced from $410 in 2013.)
2) Increases, from $20 to $30, the portion of the
membership fee that a licensee may voluntarily contribute
to support legal aid programs.
3) Authorizes and directs the State Bar to participate in
the Franchise Tax Board's (FTB's) interagency intercept
collections program for unpaid fines and penalties, with
any potential receipts to be for the support of legal aid
programs.
FISCAL EFFECT
No net state costs. All administrative costs to the FTB and the
State Controller for the interagency intercept collections are
paid from a small portion of funds recovered for the agencies.
COMMENTS
Background and Purpose . Attorneys who wish to practice law in
California generally must be admitted and licensed in this state
and must be members of the State Bar. As of May 2013, the State
Bar had 178,050 active members and 51,985 inactive members. The
SB 345
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Bar's programs are financed almost exclusively by annual
membership dues paid by attorneys as well as other fees paid by
applicants seeking to practice law.
This bill authorizes the State Bar to collect active membership
dues that would total $390 for the year 2014. This amount
reflects a $20 reduction from the current year due to the sunset
of both a $10 assessment to fund information technology upgrades
and a $10 assessment that was used to fund the purchase of a
building in Los Angeles. The optional legal aid fee continues
the existing mechanism by which members who choose to do so can
help support nonprofit legal aid organizations that make free
legal services available to poor Californians. Attorneys who
elect not to make this contribution, which would increase from
$20 to $30, may deduct this amount from their dues. The
increased revenue from this assessment will partially offset a
reduction of $2 million annually that the Legislature has
required the Bar to contribute in recent years, but is not being
continued.
Overall funding for legal aid services has declined in recent
years and will continue to decline as the demand for such
services is increasing. Federal funding to California from the
Legal Services Corporation declined by $2 million from 2012 to
2013. Further reductions are expected due to federal
sequestration and a reallocation of state grant amounts based on
the 2010 census. In addition, the main source of state funding
for legal services-interest on lawyer trust accounts (IOLTA)-has
declined precipitously in recent years due to historically low
interest rates.
In order to provide some offset to these reductions, this bill
directs the Bar to participate in the FTB's Interagency
Intercept Collections (IIC) program in an effort to see if
uncollected fines and penalties against members can be
collected. Because many of these outstanding assessments are
quite old, the potential for collection is speculative, however.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081