State Bar of California - Lawyer Discipline

Lawyer Discipline

California has the only state bar that operates its own State Bar Court, staffed by judges who specialize only in handling professional responsibility cases on a full-time basis (i.e., it is their primary job function). Other jurisdictions either appoint special masters on an ad hoc basis to adjudicate such cases, or have disciplinary commissions or boards that function on a part-time basis and hold relatively informal hearings.

Complaints against attorneys are investigated and prosecuted by the State Bar's Office of the Chief Trial Counsel. Under the State Bar Act, upon receiving a complaint, the Bar may choose whether to open an investigation. If the Bar does find sufficient evidence of misconduct, decides that it has standing, and decides to take action to impose discipline, it has the power to proceed against accused attorneys either in the Supreme Court of California or in the State Bar Court. The State Bar holds that it may decline to review complaints that are not made by a judge who heard a matter related to the complaint.

Complaints of professional misconduct are usually first prosecuted in the Hearing Department of the State Bar Court. If the lawyer disagrees with an adverse decision, he or she may appeal to the Review Department of the State Bar Court, and from there to the state supreme court. Although the State Bar Court's decisions are technically only recommendations, the distinction is largely academic. Failure to comply with conditions imposed as part of any form of lesser discipline short of disbarment can itself result in a recommendation of disbarment, which is virtually always ratified because the attorney's noncompliance with the State Bar Act will have been clearly established by that point.