PLEASE NOTE: Publication for public comment is not, and shall not be, construed as a recommendation or approval by the Board of Trustees of the materials published.
State Bar Rule 2.15 (Scaling) now provides a 25 percent reduction in State Bar dues for certain active members who are employed on a continuous full-time basis by an organization that receives Legal Services Trust Fund grants and pays the member’s bar dues.
The State Bar is considering amending and broadening the application of the 25 percent reduction to certain part time employees who have no other employment relating to the practice of law.
Because of the chronic lack of funding facing legal services programs receiving funds from the Bar’s Legal Services Trust Fund Program, the Bar adopted paragraph (b) of Rule 2.15 to help the programs by allowing them to scale the dues for those attorneys who were full time and for whom the nonprofit paid the dues. However, since many legal aid programs lack adequate funding to keep all their attorneys at a full-time level, the Office of Legal Services is proposing modifying the Rule so that it covered those attorneys employed by legal aid programs who are at least half-time and who do not have other employment relating to the practice of law.
Attachment A – Rules of the State Bar, Title 2, Division 2 (Annual Membership Fees and Penalties)
Board Committee on Operations