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State Bar of California Publishes 2020 Annual Discipline Report

Today the State Bar released its 2020 Annual Discipline Report (ADR).

While portions of the ADR are required by statute, those requirements present only a partial view of the State Bar’s disciplinary work. The State Bar expands on them to make the ADR a more comprehensive overview of the State Bar’s attorney discipline system: its workload, operations, initiatives, and performance in fulfilling its statutory obligation to protect the public from attorney misconduct.

"I am proud of what our hard-working staff throughout the State Bar accomplished in 2020 to continue and improve how we protect the public from attorney misconduct and the fraudulent behavior of nonattorneys holding themselves out as State Bar licensees,” said Interim Executive Director Donna Hershkowitz. “Throughout an unprecedented year, we not only kept our critical disciplinary work moving forward, but also made substantial progress on structural reforms designed to increase the fairness and effectiveness of the attorney discipline system.”

The 2020 report highlights the State Bar’s efforts to fulfill and further its public protection mandate during a year dominated by the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Amid this public health crisis, the State Bar’s discipline system continued protecting the public by:

• Opening nearly 17,500 cases;
• Continuing to focus investigative and prosecutorial resources on cases that pose the greatest risk of harm to the public;
• Reducing the backlog of the highest priority cases by 17 percent;
• Filing notices of disciplinary charges in State Bar Court against 180 attorneys;
• Recommending disbarment for 97 attorneys, suspension for another 114, and issuing 50 reprovals; and
• Maintaining the quality of its work, as demonstrated by continued high rates of cases upheld after a second look by the Complaint Review Unit of the State Bar’s Office of General Counsel and upon further review by the Supreme Court.

The report highlights how the State Bar adapted in 2020, enabling it to continue to perform its critical public protection functions amid the challenges brought on by COVID-19. It also spotlights how the economic crisis caused by the pandemic had follow-on impacts affecting the discipline system. With courts closed for several months, legal activity slowed. Likewise, travel bans, business closures, and the deferral of major business decisions that require legal advice impacted the volume of attorney work in 2020. These factors resulted in declines in complaints about both attorney misconduct and the unauthorized practice of law in 2020.

The decline in complaint volume enabled the Office of Chief Trial Counsel (OCTC) to make inroads in the inventory of cases that had accumulated in prior years. OCTC increased its filings of disciplinary charges by 28 percent in 2020 and reduced its backlog of the highest priority cases (those that present the highest risk of harm to the public) by 17 percent. The caseload clearance rate for lower priority cases also improved.

The report also highlights digital outreach efforts by the State Bar during 2020 to connect with populations vulnerable to fraud and the unauthorized practice of law, which included:

• Online fraud alerts on COVID-19 scams, promoted on social media;
• Updated consumer information pamphlets in seven languages;
• A website landing webpage for Spanish speakers so all State Bar web resources available in Spanish can be easily accessed; and
• A paid social media campaign on Facebook and Instagram targeting California Spanish speakers.

Finally, the report highlights the State Bar’s ongoing initiatives and plans to continue improving the discipline system, which include:

• Launching its Ad Hoc Commission on the Discipline System, which will review the initiatives, policies, and procedures that OCTC has implemented to improve the discipline system’s fairness and effectiveness and recommend additional or revised reforms. The first meeting of the Ad Hoc Commission is scheduled for Friday, April 30.
• Continuing its ongoing work to eliminate racial disparities in the discipline system.
• Continuing to develop proactive, preventative approaches to attorney misconduct that will both improve public protection and support attorneys at high risk of being the subject of a complaint.
• Collaborating with stakeholders such as the California Attorney General’s Office and the California Housing Finance Authority on a Foreclosure Working Group with the goal of preventing another surge of loan modification scams and associated discipline.

Additional Information

• Fast Facts: 2020 Annual Discipline Report

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The State Bar of California's mission is to protect the public and includes the primary functions of licensing, regulation and discipline of attorneys; the advancement of the ethical and competent practice of law; and support of efforts for greater access to, and inclusion in, the legal system.