Bill Text: CA SB40 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: State Bar of California.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2023-10-10 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Chapter 697, Statutes of 2023. [SB40 Detail]
Download: California-2023-SB40-Amended.html
Amended
IN
Assembly
September 07, 2023 |
Amended
IN
Assembly
July 12, 2023 |
Amended
IN
Assembly
July 03, 2023 |
Amended
IN
Assembly
June 22, 2023 |
Amended
IN
Senate
March 21, 2023 |
Introduced by Senator Umberg |
December 05, 2022 |
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
Existing law requires the board to engage the services of an independent national or regional public accounting firm with specified experience for an audit of its financial statement for each fiscal year. Existing law requires that a copy of the audit and financial statement be submitted within 120 days of the close of the fiscal year to the board, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Assembly and Senate Committees on Judiciary.
This bill
would require that submission annually on or before May 31.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee:Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares the following:SEC. 2.
Section 6001 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6001.
(a) The State Bar of California is a public corporation. It is hereinafter designated as the State Bar.The
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
Pursuant
The
No
SECTION 1.SEC. 3.
Section 6001.3 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6001.3.
(a) It is the intent of the Legislature that the State Bar maintain its commitment to and support of effective policies and activities to enhance access, fairness, and diversity in the legal profession and the elimination of bias in the practice of law.SEC. 4.
Section 6001.5 is added to the Business and Professions Code, to read:6001.5.
(a) The State Bar of California shall require that all employees and prospective employees, and may require volunteers, contractors, and subcontractors, to submit fingerprints to the Department of Justice and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in order to establish identity and to determine whether the individual has a record of criminal conviction in this state or in other states, including through a national criminal history check.SEC. 2.SEC. 5.
Section 6007 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6007.
(a) When a licensee requires involuntary treatment pursuant to Article 6 (commencing with Section 5300) of Chapter 2 of Division 5 of, or Part 2 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 6 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, or when under an order pursuant to Section 3051, 3106.5, or 3152 of the Welfare and Institutions Code they have been placed in or returned to inpatient status at the California Rehabilitation Center or its branches, or when they have been determined insane or mentally incompetent and is confined for treatment or placed on outpatient status pursuant to the Penal Code, or on account of their mental condition a guardian or conservator, for their estate or person or both, has been appointed, the Board of Trustees or an officer of the State Bar shall enroll the licensee as an inactive licensee.SEC. 3.SEC. 6.
Section 6011 is added to the Business and Professions Code, to read:6011.
(a) The board shall appoint an executive director of the StateSEC. 4.SEC. 7.
Section 6012 is added to the Business and Professions Code, to read:6012.
(a) The board shall appoint a general counsel of the State Bar to serve as the chief legal advisor to the board on issues not related to attorney discipline.(a)The State Bar shall not alter the bar examination in a manner that requires the substantial modification of the training or preparation required for passage of the examination, except after giving two years’ notice of that change. This requirement does not apply to a change in the bar examination that is applicable only at the option of the applicant.
(b)The examining committee shall communicate and cooperate with the Law School Council.
(c)Scaling may be used on the bar examination for the purpose of maintaining an examination of uniform difficulty from year to year.
SEC. 8.
Section 6021 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6021.
(a)(c)The president and vice president in place on the effective date of the measure adding this subdivision shall retain their positions until the chair and vice chair are appointed.
SEC. 9.
Section 6026.7 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6026.7.
(a) The State Bar is subject to the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act (Article 9 (commencing with Section 11120) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code) and all meetings of the State Bar are subject to the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act.SEC. 10.
Section 6036 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6036.
(a) Any member of the board of trustees shall disqualifySEC. 11.
Section 6037 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6037.
No action or decision of theSEC. 12.
Section 6054 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6054.
(a) State and local law enforcement and licensing bodies and departments, officers and employees thereof, and officials and attachés of the courts of this state shall cooperate with and give reasonable assistance and information, including the providing of state summary criminal history information and local summary criminal history information, to the State Bar of California or any authorized representative thereof, in connection with any investigation or proceeding within the jurisdiction of the State Bar of California, regarding the admission to the practice of law or discipline of attorneys or their reinstatement to the practice of law.(c)The State Bar shall request from the Department of Justice subsequent arrest notification service, as provided pursuant to Section 11105.2 of the Penal Code, for applicants to, and licensees of, the State Bar.
(d)
(e)The State Bar shall report to the Supreme Court and the Legislature by March 15, 2018, regarding its compliance with the requirements of this section.
SEC. 6.SEC. 13.
Section 6060 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6060.
To be certified to the Supreme Court for admission and a license to practice law, a person who has not been admitted to practice law in a sister state, United States jurisdiction, possession, territory, or dependency or in a foreign country shall:(a)Notwithstanding any other law, any identifying information submitted by an applicant to the State Bar for admission and a license to practice law and all State Bar admission records, including, but not limited to, bar examination scores, law school grade point average (GPA), undergraduate GPA, Law School Admission Test scores, race or ethnicity, and any information contained within the State Bar Admissions database or any file or other data created by the State Bar with information submitted by the applicant that may identify an individual applicant, other than information described in subdivision (b), shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed pursuant to any state law, including, but not limited to, the California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the Government
Code).
(b)Subject to existing state and federal laws protecting education records, subdivision (a) does not prohibit the disclosure of any of the following:
(1)The names of applicants who have passed any examination administered, given, or prescribed by the State Bar.
(2)Information that is provided at the request of an applicant to another jurisdiction where the applicant is seeking admission to the practice of law.
(3)Information provided to a law school that is necessary for the purpose of the law school’s compliance with accreditation or regulatory requirements. Beginning with the release of results from the July 2018 bar examination, the information provided to a law school shall also include the bar examination results of the law school’s graduates allocated to the law school and the scores of any graduate allocated to the law school who did not pass the bar examination and who consents to the release of the graduate’s scores to the law school. Consent of a law school graduate to the release of the graduate’s scores may be obtained by a check-off on the graduate’s application to take the bar examination. For purposes of this paragraph, “scores” means the same scores reported to a graduate who did not successfully pass the bar examination.
(4)Information provided to the National Conference of Bar Examiners or a successor nonprofit organization in connection to the State Bar’s administration of any examination.
(5)This subdivision shall apply retroactively to January 1, 2016.
(c)Disclosure of any of the information in paragraphs (2) to (4),
inclusive, of subdivision (b) shall not constitute a waiver under Section 7921.505 of the Government Code of the exemption from disclosure provided for in subdivision (a) of this section.
(d)(1)Notwithstanding any other law except existing state and federal laws protecting education records, any information received from an educational or testing entity that is collected by the State Bar for the purpose of conducting a Law School Bar Exam Performance Study as the State Bar has been directed to do by the California Supreme Court by letter dated February 28, 2017, other than aggregate, summary, or statistical data that does not identify any person and does not provide substantial risk of identification of any person, shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed pursuant to any state law, including, but not limited to, the California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the
Government Code).
(2)Nothing in this subdivision is intended to impact any litigation pending on the effective date of the measure that added this subdivision.
SEC. 8.SEC. 14.
Section 6060.3 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6060.3.
(a) An application to take the California bar examination administered in February must be filed with the State Bar not later than the first business day of the preceding November, and an application to take the California bar examination administered in July must be filed with the State Bar not later than the first business day of the preceding April. However, an applicant who was unsuccessful on the examination last administered shall be allowed 10 business days from the date of the general announcement of results of that examination in which to timely file an application to take the next scheduled examination.(a)To be certified to the Supreme Court for admission, and a license to practice law, a person who has been admitted to practice law in a sister state, United States jurisdiction, possession, territory, or dependency the United States may hereafter acquire shall:
(1)Be of the age of at least 18 years.
(2)Be of good moral character.
(3)Have passed the general bar examination given by the State Bar. However, if that person has been an active licensee in good standing of the bar of the admitting sister state or United States jurisdiction, possession, or territory for at least four years immediately preceding the first day of the examination applied for, they may elect to take the Attorneys’ Examination rather than the general bar examination. Attorneys admitted less than four years and attorneys admitted four years or more in another jurisdiction but who have not been active licensees in good standing of their admitting jurisdiction for at least four years immediately preceding the first day of the examination applied for must take the general bar examination administered to general applicants not admitted as attorneys in other jurisdictions.
(4)Have passed an examination in professional responsibility or legal ethics as the State Bar may prescribe.
(b)To be certified to the Supreme Court for admission, and a license to practice law, a person who has been admitted to practice law in a jurisdiction other than in a sister state, United States jurisdiction, possession, or territory shall:
(1)Be of the age of at least 18 years.
(2)Be of good moral character.
(3)Have passed the general bar examination given by the State Bar.
(4) Have passed an examination in professional responsibility or legal ethics as the State Bar may prescribe.
(c)The amendments to this section made at the 1997–98 Regular Session of the Legislature shall be applicable on and after January 1, 1997, and do not constitute a change in, but are declaratory of, existing law.
SEC. 10.SEC. 15.
Section 6063 of the Business and Professions Code is amended to read:6063.
Applicants for admission to practice shall pay such reasonable fees, fixed by the board, as may be necessary to defray the expense of administering the provisions of this chapter, relating to admission to practice. These fees shall be collected by the State Bar and paid into the treasury of the State Bar.(a)Upon certification by the State Bar that the applicant has fulfilled the requirements for admission to practice law, the Supreme Court may admit the applicant as an attorney at law in all the courts of this state and may direct an order to be entered upon its records to that effect. A certificate of admission thereupon shall be given to the applicant by the clerk of the court.
(b)Upon certification by the State Bar that an applicant who is not lawfully present in the United States has fulfilled the requirements for admission to practice law, the Supreme Court may admit that applicant as an attorney at law in all the courts of this state and may direct an order to be entered upon its records to that effect. A certificate of admission thereupon shall be given to
the applicant by the clerk of the court.