Message from the Executive Director

Five Years of Reform Continues

When I first arrived at the State Bar in 2015, as Chief Operations Officer reporting to new Executive Director Elizabeth Parker, we were told that our job was to turn the organization around.  

My first impressions? 

Here was an organization that had been studied and assessed repeatedly, with 30 years' worth of reports and recommendations that were basically sitting on shelves, covering areas ranging from increasing access to justice to discipline oversight. My perception was that staff were both traumatized by internal politicking and so accustomed to it that they had resigned themselves to dysfunction as standard operating procedure.  

We found low levels of trust among key stakeholders, due to outright dishonesty on the part of former leadership, incompetence, or both. Membership and disciplinary arms seemed locked in unsolvable conflict. Committees and task forces with mostly lawyer volunteers often worked in silos on projects rarely related to the core public protection mission. It seemed to me that the organization spent more time and energy on gala planning than on discipline oversight.   

I am proud to have served as deputy to Elizabeth's captaincy in turning the tide— an effort that included a complete organizational restructure, elimination of elected members of the Board of Trustees, and, ultimately, the separation of all trade association aspects of the State Bar in 2018. It was the most significant structural reform in the State Bar's 90 years.  

Since then, we have come a long way, and we continue to evolve. To commemorate the five years since that milestone, we put together this interactive timeline, and I encourage you to have a look: 

The timeline focuses predominantly on governance and discipline, so it doesn't even touch some aspects of the State Bar's significant accomplishments in the last five years--things like changes to the Bar Exam, bringing forth the new Rules of Professional Conduct, and our rapid growth as the largest legal aid funder in the state.  

Many of us, and I include myself in this, are often so relentlessly focused on the future that sometimes it helps to take a breath, take a look back, and realize and appreciate how far we've come. 

On another topic...What does Black History Month mean to me? 

While we rightfully celebrate the individual achievements of Black people during the month of February, I find myself reflecting on other things. First, a recognition that our country was built on stolen labor and stolen land. Second, while many Black Americans have excelled in their respective fields, some have been transformational leaders inspiring the nation and the world, and others of us have certainly benefited from the opportunities and promise that this country affords. We have a long way to go.

In every sphere of our society we see Black people at the bottom of the “right” ladders – think homeownership for example - and at the top of the wrong ones – incarceration rates, offering another example. This paradigm exists in our own little corner of the world, with Black test takers routinely underperforming their peers on the bar exam, and Black males receiving the highest rates of discipline. Acknowledgement, curiosity, a willingness to engage in difficult self-examination and action as individuals, institutions, and as a society, is what we can and must do.

So that is what this month means to me. How about you?