Applications are scheduled to be submitted this week for a new commission that will examine disparities and causal factors in the State Bar attorney discipline system, and recommend how to improve parity and effectiveness.
The California Bar Board of Trustees recently approved the charter and composition for the "Ad Hoc Commission on the Discipline System."
“This commission is called ad hoc because it is expected to complete its charter and sunset afterwards, unlike many ongoing committees and commissions of the State Bar,” Teresa Ruano, principal program analyst with the Office of Strategic Communications & Stakeholder Engagement at the State Bar of California, told the Northern California Record by email.
The need for the commission was informed by a report, conducted by professor George Farkas, on discipline disparities after which, “the Board directed staff to develop an action plan to address the factors that contribute to the disproportionate discipline of Black, male attorneys,” Lisa Chavez, director of the California Bar Office of Research & Institutional Accountability, wrote in the agenda item concerning recommendations for the commission’s charter and composition.
Applications for the commission, which will consist of 19 members, are due by Jan 5. The commission is expected to begin its work early this year, Ruano said.
The commission’s final report is due by June 30, 2022.
Meanwhile, in advance of the second of the State Bar’s remote online bar exams, scheduled for Feb. 23-24, the California Supreme Court order noted that, “Utilizing reasonable pandemic-related precautions, the General Bar examination will be administered in-person at the discretion of the State Bar to those applicants granted testing accommodations that cannot be effectively provided and securely administered in a remote environment, and for those with other extenuating circumstances that require them to take the test in-person rather than remotely.”
The October 2020 bar exam was the first ever online remote bar exam in California, Ruano told the Record.
“With regard to the February bar exam, in a typical year, with an in-person exam, it’s taken by between 4,000 and 5,000 applicants,” Ruano said. “A large percentage of those are typically retakers. However, given the unprecedented year preceding the February 2021 exam, it’s difficult to predict or estimate how many will register for the February 2021 exam.”
Applicants have either until Jan. 4 or Jan. 25 to register.
“With the many changes affecting applicants’ decisions with regard to the February 2021 exam (persistence of the pandemic and its related challenges, the reduced cut score that will first affect pass rates from the October 2020 exam, the availability of provisional licensing as an alternative, and the online format of the exam), we don’t know how this year will compare,” Ruano said. “The initial registration deadline is January 4, and immediate retakers (those who took the October 2020 exam and did not pass—they will learn of their results on Jan 8) have until January 25 to register, so we expect the large portion of the registration will take place in January.”