AB 3249 enacted a new State Bar Act for the state of California.
https://soundcloud.com/capimpactca/ab-3249
The bill amended over one hundred sections of California’s Business and Professions Code, as well as numerous sections of the Civil Code, the Government Code, the Insurance Code, and the Revenue and Taxation Code to make numerous changes to the laws regarding attorneys. Some of the major provisions of this omnibus bill are covered below and more are covered in today’s podcast.
The bill replaced the terms member, membership, and dues with the terms licensee, license, and fees throughout the Act. It also specifies that any reference to member of the State Bar is now deemed to mean licensee of the State Bar.
AB 3249 also changed the filing deadline to January 1 for the February California Bar Exam, and changed the deadline to June 1 for the July Bar Exam. It further prohibits an application for examination from being accepted after January 1 or June 1.
The bill requires the State Bar to develop and implement a plan to meet certain goals relating to access, fairness, and diversity in the legal profession, as well as the elimination of bias in the practice of law, and to prepare and submit a report on the plan for the implementation to the California Legislature ever two years, starting on March 15, 2019.
The Act requires the State Bar court to order the involuntary inactive enrollment of an attorney who is sentenced to incarceration for 90 days or more as a result of a criminal conviction, and it would require an attorney placed on inactive enrollment to comply with a specified rule of the California Rules of Court.
Further, the Act requires the Supreme Court to disbar an attorney after the judgment of conviction if the offense is a felony and either the facts or circumstances of the offense involve moral turpitude, or an element of the offense in the specific intent to deceive, defraud, steal, or make or suborn a false statement, or involved moral turpitude.
Again, this is an abbreviated list of major provisions in 2018’s AB 3249. I cover more provisions in today’s podcast.