Focus for a moment on the following statement that can be found all over the State Bar website:
The State Bar of California is an administrative arm of the California Supreme Court, protecting the public and seeking to improve the justice system for more than 80 years. All lawyers practicing law in California must be members of the State Bar. Membership now stands at about a quarter million.
As has now been widely reported, Joe Dunn filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the state bar – an administrative arm of the supreme court – and was promptly fired.
It would appear that Mr. Dunn alleges that operatives at the state bar cooked the books to conceal a disciplinary backlog. We’re not sure of how that would come to fruition but it seems to us the easiest of ways would be to 1) lose the initial complaints or 2) dismiss the allegations as being without merit as that would only require a form letter. Either way, there would be no time consuming investigations and no hearings….
Much like the VA scandal where our citizen soldiers were the victims of cooked books and dying while waiting for doctors appointments, I’m guessing CalBar management thought the easiest way to blow through the backlog would be to consider them non-existent or resolved. After all, that would be the way that Tani’s other office at the judicial council would handle things.
Now based on the allegations, one would think the phearless leader of her administrative office would launch an investigation into the actions of that administrative office or invite an independent investigation into the allegations made. But true to Tani form, they’ve chosen to sit on their hands and are allegedly “monitoring the situation”. Rather than have anyone launch any fact-finding mission to deal with the allegations, “monitoring the situation” amounts to not doing a damn thing except to play interference on behalf of CalBar management.
In more euphemistic terms, there is likely some meat on those allegation bones and we wouldn’t want to tarnish the image of an administrative office of the Supreme Court.
I can’t say that Joe Dunn’s tenure wasn’t rocky as he was at one time willing to commit millions in CalBar funds for a module of CCMS to run the state bar court, even though by that time there were serious misgivings that the judicial council had a functional product. As far as attorney discipline, no organization can serve as both an exclusive chamber of commerce for lawyers as well as a public protection organization policing lawyers without having insurmountable conflicts of interest – but they’ve managed to do just that for years without being called on it.
Lastly, there is the alleged conflict of interest in retaining a law firm tied to a member of the board of trustees. A member that was formerly a judicial council member and was appointed by the supreme court who was allegedly retained to dig up the dirt on Joe Dunn after he made his concerns known regarding the alleged cooked books.
One would think that this would have never occurred without the full backing of the appointer.
Judicial Council Watcher 
unionman575
November 14, 2014
More nice work JCW.
😉
sharonkramer
November 14, 2014
EXCELLENT WORK, JCW! BTW, whatever happened to Jill Sperber? She seemed to have a propensity for losing complaints.
unionman575
November 14, 2014
“whatever happened to Jill Sperber?”
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillsperber122
😉
sharonkramer
November 15, 2014
What? Sperber is now a beauty consultant?
wearyant
November 14, 2014
What happened to all that collegiality we once heard about? Oh, well, sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield. Unfortunately, the third branch continues to be highly entertaining.
Nancy Field
November 14, 2014
Hello everyone. My nom de guerre for this site will be Nancy Field.
I spent almost 50-years in public service, the bulk of which was for the California Courts.
Unfortunately, it is important that I maintain my anonymity so that I may continue to receive
my small retirement stipend.
All contributors should please keep in mind the “big picture” purpose of the AOC Watcher and its successor in interest, the Judicial Council Watcher. Small, petty and individual local issues detract from the true importance of this site. Individual issues in Marin or San Diego while important to those who are personally involved, are less than the importance of the greater good and allows Tani and her allies to minimize and deflect the importance of the JCW.
With the arrival of Ronald George, it became apparent to me that my personal goals for advancement needed to give way to the greater good of all Californians. Although voted as exceptionally well qualified by my colleagues, Mr. George ensured that I would remain a humble trial judge because I dared to question him and Mr. Vickrey on certain irregularities
that I brought to their attention. I gladly gave up my personal advancement for the honor
of serving the public.
Senator Joe Dunn is an honorable man. I have no doubt but that he saw some ‘problems within the Judicial Council / State Bar complex and had the temerity to attempt to bring that to someone’s attention. Since he is “termed out” Senator Dunn no longer posed an apparent “threat” to Tani and her minions and thus could be cast aside. It will be fascinating to see what is revealed in his whistle blower action. Hopefully it will get the attention that it deserves.
Stay focused and always be willing to give up your own “advancement” of personal issues for the greater good. JCW plays an important role in the advancement of the cause of all Californians. Please don’t let individual and personal issues “derail” the overall vital importance of this site.
Nancy
l
Wendy Darling
November 14, 2014
Welcome to JCW, Nancy!
Long live the ACJ.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 15, 2014
A comment that once existed here was moderated. Everyone has their opinions and should be free to post them without being challenged, especially when it concerns the overarching goal of this site.
This site was founded to deal with the proverbial head of the snake because when the head is removed (ie corruption at the top) everything else has a tendency to die with it (corruption at the bottom…)
We encourage public involvement in this process and wherever we can see a direct tie from court events to judicial council events we want to hear about them and let them be known.
The matter in Marin County is such an event and is representative of how ineffectual this body of people is in doing their purported jobs as the “policymaking body of the judicial branch”.
In other states, judges and clerks are doing hard time in a 9×12 box with bars for what happened recently in Marin County and it has happened in other courts. In this particular case, bad behavior has been sanctioned by the judicial council in numerous ways and I seriously doubt that an elected judicial council would have permitted it to happen without being addressed because transparency and accountability are the hallmarks of credibility.
Our current chief justice and her predecessor believe that if you ignore or survey the problem for years at a time that eventually they will all go away because this is a marathon, not a race and they have 12 years to wear you down.
And now on to Nancy’s comments: She is correct insofar as we do not intend to get caught up in the weeds of individual cases and our focus remains to reform the most corrupt entity in state government and get our courts back to work serving the people of this state – and not just as glorified tax collectors.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 15, 2014
Sorry, Welcome Nancy and we hope to hear more from you.
Wendy Darling
November 14, 2014
Speaking of the big picture: published late today, Friday, November 14, from Courthouse News Service, by Bill Girdner:
National News Media Joins 9th Cir. Case on Public Access in CA Courts
By BILL GIRDNER
National newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, have joined in the pending Ninth Circuit challenge to Ventura Superior Court over access to newly filed complaints.
The case brought by Courthouse News challenged Ventura’s clerk over delays in media access that ran up to a month. The delay sapped the news out of important legal battles, for example, over water rights and wind farms.
“Having access to complaints is an important component of reporting on the legal system and the judicial branch,” said the brief by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 25 media organizations, including the Associated Press, News Corp., Dow Jones, Bloomberg, The New Yorker and The Seattle Times.
“Civil complaints are most newsworthy the day they are filed, and, accordingly, the media is most likely to report on lawsuits of public interest and concern at that time,” said the signatories, also including E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Co., Hearst Corp. and McClatchy Company.
The journey of the case began three years ago when it was filed in federal court in Los Angeles. Judge Manuel Real dismissed on abstention grounds, saying the matter was for state courts to decide.
The Ninth Circuit reversed.
“Open government has been a hallmark of our democracy since our nation’s founding,” said the opinion by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw joined by Mary Murguia and John Noonan.
“We have observed that the news media, when asserting the right of access, ‘are surrogates for the public,'” said the ruling. “The free press is the guardian of the public interest, and the independent judiciary is the guardian of the free press.'”
Towards the conclusion of the 32-page opinion, Wardlaw said, “We also trust that the Ventura County Superior Court would comply with any federal injunction requiring it to make unlimited civil complaints available within a specified time period.”
Following that April decision, the clerk in Ventura began providing same-day access to all new actions filed before the court closes at 3:00, contradicting the defense argument that it was “impossible.”
Despite the clerk’s concession, lawyers for Jones Day who represent the clerk — and the over-arching Judicial Council on other matters — again moved for dismissal, again before Judge Real.
The second motion to dismiss included an argument that complaints are not really filed until they are processed, reflecting a position taken by the council’s Technology Committee.
As part of e-filing rules proposed last year, the tech committee attempted to create a new “officially filed” category for public documents. Definitional sleights of pen translated that term to mean after processing.
The new definition brought a chorus of objection from the L.A. Times, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, First Amendment Coalition and Bay Area News Group among many others. The council over-rode those objections and voted unanimously to adopt the rules.
The effort by a few courts to keep with the “officially filed” notion has required severe administrative contortions.
In Ventura, for example, clerks stamp new paper complaints as “received” when they cross the counter. After processing, the clerks stamp “filed” on the complaint but backdate the stamp to the earlier day it was received.
To similar effect, in Orange County Superior, an e-filing court, software sends an electronic message saying a new filing has been received. After clerks process the case — currently two days after the case crosses the virtual counter – an electronic “filed” stamp is affixed to the complaint, backdated to the day it was received.
In a peculiar twist, Orange County’s file stamp is a mash-up of two separate elements, the earlier date when it was received and the time of day when it was later processed.
While Ventura has largely complied with the direction from the Ninth Circuit, a few courts such as Orange County have not. Preserving the notion of “official filing” would make a difference to those few courts that continue to refuse same-day access.
The great majority of courts in California are not affected because they provide same-day access to the press, including the courts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Oakland and Contra Costa, among others.
In August, Real dismissed the case for the second time. He said complaints needed to be processed before press access, and relied on a case from the 1800s saying a new complaint is not public until there has been a hearing.
Roger Myers, Rachel Matteo-Boehm, Jonathan Fetterly and Leila Knox with Bryan Cave, representing Courthouse News, again appealed. They asked for an accelerated briefing schedule, which was granted.
In their brief, they said the dismissal cannot stand.
“The sum total of the dismissal of this case is the deeply troubling result, if allowed to stand, that there is no First Amendment right of access to civil complaints unless and until some unspecified date after which they are ‘minimally processed’ — whatever that might mean — and have been the subject of ‘a hearing to which the public has a First Amendment right of access,’ even if that is days, weeks or months after a complaint is filed … or never happens at all,” said the brief.
In their supporting amicus brief, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and a virtual who’s who of the national media agreed.
“Civil complaints are a critical component of meaningful public access to civil proceedings, because a pleading is a foundational document that sets a lawsuit in motion,” said the amicus brief.
“As technology advances, the definition of ‘fresh’ news continues to contract. Websites of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, for example or Google News, measure freshness of news updates in minutes. In this environment, it is imperative that the first new stories be as accurate and as complete as possible,” said the brief. “To delay access to complaints is to deny meaningful access.”
Among the 25 news organizations signing onto the amicus brief are the First Amendment Coalition, American Society of News Editors, Association of Alternative News Media, MediaNews Group, National Press Photographers Association, New England First Amendment Coalition, News Guild, North Jersey Media Group, Online News Association, New England Newspaper and Press Association, Stephens Media and the Radio Television Digital News Association, in addition to the Associated Press, News Corp., Dow Jones, Bloomberg, The New Yorker, The Seattle Times, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Co., Hearst Corp., McClatchy Company, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/11/14/national-news-media-joins-9th-cir-case-on-public-access-in-ca-courts.htm
Long live Bill Girdner, Courthouse News Service, and the First Amendment. And long live the ACJ.
Lando
November 14, 2014
Justice Panelli is a great man and one of the finest settlement judges in the country .It is too bad he wasn’t given the opportunity to try and work all this out. In my long career I have seen our justice system sadly devolve into more fighting, more litigation and more conflict. I hope someday we can get back to having respectful conversations even when we disagree. Our current Chief Justice has failed as she never saw the benefit of opening the doors to the crystal palace to democracy or even the fair exchange of dissenting ideas. In that regard she followed the arrogant Ronald George who did everything he could to squash dissent. Thanks to Nancy above and the many others here for recognizing where our focus should be, bringing democracy back to our once proud and effective branch.
unionman575
November 15, 2014
http://www.courts.ca.gov/epmeetings.htm
Executive and Planning Committee
Thursday, November 20, 2014
12:10 to 1:10 p.m.
877-820-7831, passcode 846-8947 (listen only)ranch.
MaxRebo5
November 15, 2014
Nice link Unionman. They are reviewing the case weights in WAFM. That’s how they will try to maintain court funding even when the cases coming in the courthouse doors are way down (which they can’t control or hide).
They have to increase the weights in the formula to say that even though there are fewer cases today the cases still coming in the door are more complex. Since CCMS failed I doubt there is hard data to prove or disprove there are more hearings per case today. Also with Prop 47 they are not likely more complex. Those cases are misdemeanors instead of being felonies by law now.
This effort is part of Tani’s never ending quest for more money and more judgeships, but it’ll be all based on opinion or surveys instead of real hard data. The Governor, DOF, and Legislature should not forget it was the Judicial Council who failed on CCMS so Tani is responsible for that loss of hearing data per case to justify any increase in the case weights. Also the National Center for State Courts is funded by the state courts so they are not a neutral body to be determining judge staffing levels or case weights. The Legislature should do a review themselves.
The other check on this tactic of increasing the weights is the Legislature can clearly see the decline in fines and fees coming in to the state That will be further proof there is simply less criminal workload for the courts.
Tani’s message is out of touch with all the crime data from DOJ, out of touch with AOC’s own case filing data, and out of touch with the budget being back filled by the Legislature. She’ll be flat out lying if she does not stop her rhetoric. She is not drowning. Nor does she need billions more to tread water. She just needs to reduce the AOC and redirect those millions back to trial courts in the short term. The rest will work out fairly for the branch because crime in CA is at historic lows.
Hopefully this game she is playing is almost over as the math exposes her lies.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 16, 2014
I read an article recently that suggested that the judicial council would need tens of millions for resentencing a few thousand offenders who can petition for resentencing under this new proposition. I’d say that’s grabbing at straws when a judge could likely do it in-chambers and it would amount to a release from custody. Jails around the state wasted no time and some started releasing their inmates under the new proposition as soon as the vote was confirmed by SOS.
I’m gathering that there is great resistance from courts with respect to what amounts to a redistribution of wealth – and then you have those rural or semi-rural counties whose district attorneys routinely overcharge, like Yolo county that might use that routine overcharging to alter the case weights and game the new system.
Dante
November 17, 2014
WAFM is based on number of cases filed. Those numbers are weighted to reflect the resources needed since some cases take far more time and resources to litigate. A death penalty case obviously is much more resource intensive than a receiving-stolen-property case. But right now, they are both counted the same for WAFM purposes. The E&P agenda item is just to create a subcommittee to try to quantify the resources needed to try a special circs case, that is, to properly “weight” it, as opposed to another felony case. This is on the agenda at the request of the budget advisory committee.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 17, 2014
Hi Dante,
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate the difference and agree the examples you gave should have different weights. However, some district attorneys have a penchant for overcharging cases so that they expend a whole lot more resources. Sure, the new proposition eliminates quite a few “wobblers” that are typically leveraged by DA’s to plea out or charged as felonies by some tough on crime DA’s.
Giving cases different weights using your example would clearly benefit places like Los Angeles and Orange County. Unfortunately, it also benefits places where overcharging is rampant, giving them artificial weight.
I’m curious as to how this is effectively addressed.
Dante
November 17, 2014
I completely agree, that is an issue. I don’t think WAFM addresses it, and I’m not sure there would be a way to. It exists currently in that a misdemeanor has a different workload rating attached to it than a felony does, and the overcharging you describe is common in that area — the wobblers. It is less common in the special circs cases, but exists even there. What would be charged as a straight 187 in one county, may well be a death penalty murder in another. I see the problem, I’m not sure I see the solution.
MaxRebo5
November 17, 2014
Nice comment Dante on the death penalty (DP) in WAFM. I agree it makes logical sense for them to want to up the formula for a DP case over a regular felony case since they are more complex. However, as I recall, all DP cases in CA are on hold do to this Federal ruling:
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26160012/california-death-penalty-unconstitutional-federal-judge-rules
Since all DP cases are under Federal review, and could be wiped out soon, I think county DA’s should save scarce public funds by only seeking life in prison. This is not a comment expressing a view for or against capital punishment. Just a post against wasting money on a very expensive process that ultimately results in life in prison anyways.
Filing a murder case without the DP sentence ends the need for justices and AOC staff on work on committees to modify WAFM for such cases. It also ends all those automatic appeals to the CA Supreme Court. They can say a DP case takes hundreds of thousands of judge hours to process but it won’t matter because zero times anything is still zero. If the CA public can accept that the Death Penalty system in CA Courts is broken they can save a ton of money and get the exact same results which is life in prison.
Delilah
November 17, 2014
In the real world, where the rubber meets the road, the WAFM and RAS calculations are a crock. The Powers That Be have already built and started utilizing those “carts,” and now they’re gonna study the properties and makeup of the “horse”? What geniuses.
Sorry, but it reminded me of this throwback:
http://jokeoftheday.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/dead-horse-theory/
In any case, I’d like to see these same sorts of “metrics” or “models” — or ANY method — applied to the AOC, not just the trial courts. It’s funny how those methods are used to supposedly calculate how many worker bees trial courts should have, but not the number of “directors” and/or supervisors. How can you lose thousands of trial court workers and close a multitude of courtrooms/courthouses, yet the staffing at the AOC is never reduced in any kind of meaningful, or even superficial, sort of way? Because it’s BS and it’s rigged. Right now, we have multiple recently appointed supervisors who have never done the job of the people they are supervising. Seriously? And we have several new highly paid “directors” who come from outside the trial courts and have no historical or institutional knowledge of anything they are overseeing, yet they are making all the decisions. It is a joke.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 17, 2014
An astute, if not hilarious observation Delilah!
courtflea
November 15, 2014
Does this mean that Dunn will be appointed to the Supreme Court by Brown now? Just wondering.
Lando
November 15, 2014
Governor Brown’s Supreme Court appointments have been outstanding. He really works hard and takes his time to get them right and I don’t think he would ever waste such valuable picks on any political hacks like Steinberg or Dunn. My hope is that the Governor gets at least two more appointments so that HRH-2 ends up with little or no influence on the incredibly important decisions that court makes.
Wendy Darling
November 17, 2014
Published late today, Monday, November 17, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Bar Leaders Fire Back at Ousted Executive Director
Cheryl Miller, The Recorder
SACRAMENTO – State Bar leaders this weekend broke their silence over the firing of executive director Joe Dunn, saying in a statement that he was terminated after high-level employees raised “serious, wide-ranging allegations” about him.
The statement, issued Saturday, does not identify the complainants, nor does it specify what Dunn was accused of doing. But it does say that after receiving the complaints this summer, the incoming officers of the bar’s board of trustees retained Munger, Tolles & Olson to investigate. The results of that investigation led to the board’s vote on Nov. 7 to fire Dunn, the statement says.
Less than a week later, Dunn filed a whistleblower complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claiming that he was axed after allegedly alerting bar leaders that the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel had altered records to minimize a backlog of disciplinary cases. The former state senator is seeking reinstatement as well as punitive damages.
“[I]t’s bewildering to hear Mr. Dunn claim he is a whistleblower since as the executive who is head of the entire organization he is responsible for managing operations and the over 500 employees,” says the statement, attributed to the bar board.
The board says Dunn never brought any such claims to its members and only made the allegations after he was terminated “and after a settlement discussion with his counsel at the Girardi & Keese firm reached an impasse on November 12.”
The bar statement says Dunn was represented in those talks by Girardi attorney Howard Miller, who was the State Bar’s president when Dunn was hired as executive director in 2010. Dunn’s original employment contract, which contains a clause requiring mediation and arbitration of disputes, was signed by Miller’s successor, William Hebert.
“During our entire negotiations with Howard Miller, which concluded the evening of November 12, Miller never once claimed that Dunn was a whistleblower,” the board says.
Dunn’s attorneys at the Los Angeles firm of Geragos & Geragos released their own statement late Monday calling the board’s allegations “false and contrary to the documentary evidence.” The attorneys also criticized the bar for disclosing information about the failed settlement negotiations.
The bar’s statement is the latest salvo in a tit-for-tat battle that has erupted between the board and the now-terminated executive director of four years. In his whistleblower lawsuit, Dunn alleged that the board retained Munger Tolles to investigate him “on the recommendation” of trustee Miriam Krinsky, who “had close personal ties” to the firm. Dunn said Krinsky never disclosed to fellow board members her “two-decade long” professional relationship with Munger Tolles partner Bart Williams.
In an email to bar President Craig Holden, Krinsky acknowledged that she and Williams did work together previously at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and “while we knew each other through that association, we have never socialized together and the office is quite large, with close to 200 prosecutors in the Criminal Division alone.”
In its statement, the board said that Dunn had vastly overstated Krinsky’s ties to Williams and added that she had no involvement in the hiring or selection of Munger Tolles.
Dunn also alleged that Holden targeted him for months because he coveted his job as executive director. But the board statement said Holden did not introduce the motion to fire Dunn, nor did he vote on the issue.
“Mr. Holden has expressed no interest in Mr. Dunn’s position and the Board is actively looking for an interim executive director,” the statement says.
The uproar, just the latest in a decades-long list of tumultuous events at the bar, has attracted the attention of Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jackson is scheduled to carry the 2016 annual bar dues bill when the Legislature convenes for a new session in December.
“I am very concerned about the situation,” Jackson said. “As chair of the Judiciary Committee and a lawyer, I’m committed to having a well-functioning State Bar. I’m very anxious that we get to the bottom of this.”
http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202676651464/Bar-Leaders-Fire-Back-at-Ousted-Executive-Director?mcode=1202615718827
Long live the ACJ.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 18, 2014
The state bar issued a press release and nearly every media outlet is carrying it with the bars version of the sequence of events. Of course, it amounts to damage control and to fire back at Joe Dunn in the media.
It points out that Krinsky’s ties to Williams with the law firm Munger Tolles is fifteen years old and that Munger Tolles was hired in a competitive process…..
Other articles have Howard Miller (of Gerardi & Keese) trying to negotiate with the state bar and Garagos choosing to take the case on on behalf of Dunn. It will be fascinating to see what turns up in this matter and see if the judicial branch steamroller leaves behind more road kill or if Dunn can successfully prosecute his case……
…….in about 5 years.
JusticeCalifornia
November 19, 2014
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2014/11/18/former-state-bar-chief-dunn-fires-back-at.html
“Dunn has not been provided with any complaints allegedly made against him or permitted to review any of the conclusions reached by Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, the law firm hired by the bar to investigated him, the statement adds.”
Sounds fair to me. . . .NOT.
Don’t know the details, but one thing is certain: Dunn is a formidable opponent.
Judicial Council Watcher
November 19, 2014
Wouldn’t hiring outside counsel shield the state bar from disclosure under attorney-client privilege?
Wendy Darling
November 19, 2014
Published today, Wednesday, November 19, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Interesting how stuff like this happens all the time at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, and even though it gets reported, no one gives a damn.
Investigation Found Dunn Misled Bar Trustees, Breached Fiduciary Duties
Cheryl Miller, The Recorder
November 19, 2014
SACRAMENTO — Joe Dunn misled the State Bar Board of Trustees on a number of issues, including the potential sale of the Bar’s San Francisco office, and failed to meet his fiduciary responsibilities as the organization’s executive director, according to a report weighed by trustees before they voted to fire him.
The report, initiated by the board of trustees and submitted by lawyers with Munger, Tolles & Olson, raised questions about trips to Mongolia taken by Dunn and another Bar employee as well as Dunn’s candor about a Bar-sponsored piece of legislation. The report has not been made public, but two people who had reviewed the document shared its contents with The Recorder.
Munger Tolles was asked to investigate allegations made by Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim and Deputy Executive Director Robert Hawley and began work in August.
A Bar spokesman declined to comment.
In a statement issued Saturday, trustees said they reviewed Munger Tolles’ findings in closed-door meetings on Oct. 17 and Oct. 30. On Nov. 7 the board voted to fire Dunn. Six days later, Dunn sued the bar, claiming that he was terminated in retaliation for warning Bar leaders that Kim had manipulated records to eliminate evidence of a disciplinary backlog.
Dunn attorney Mark Geragos questioned the report’s findings Wednesday, saying that the executive director had been formally terminated “without cause.”
“If he had been able to respond to any of this, he would have debunked any concerns that anyone had or might have had,” Geragos said. “He was never allowed due process.”
The report says that Dunn pushed the sale of the Bar’s Howard Street building in San Francisco without telling trustees that the state Supreme Court had concerns about moving operations and employees to Sacramento.
Geragos called the finding “categorically untrue.” The sale “would have produced $100 million gross profits,” money that could have been used to lower members’ dues or finance legal aid programs, he said.
The report also raised concerns about how two Bar-sponsored trips to Mongolia were financed. Dunn, Bar law enforcement liaison Thomas Layton and former Bar President Howard Miller traveled to Ulaan Bataar in January to “begin a training program for the leadership of the Mongolian Bar Association,” according to an editorial Miller penned for the Daily Journal in April. Layton and Miller made a second trip to Mongolia later in the year.
Although Miller wrote that no Bar dues money was spent on the trip, the report found that the State Bar ended up footing part of the costs, even after Howard’s firm, Girardi & Keese, sent a reimbursement check. Miller represented Dunn in settlement talks—ultimately unsuccessful—with the Bar after Dunn was fired, Bar leaders said in the weekend statement.
Geragos said that finding is also incorrect and that Girardi & Keese and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers paid the entire cost.
The report also concluded that Dunn had failed to tell trustees about the Supreme Court’s concerns with Assembly Bill 888, a 2013 piece of Bar-sponsored legislation that would have allowed the Bar to seek civil penalties from anyone practicing law without a license. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the bill, saying that local prosecutors and the attorney general already have the necessary authority to go after fake lawyers.
Geragos said that finding, too, is untrue and that Dunn notified the board of concerns about the bill.
Finally, the report criticized Bar chief financial officer Peggy Van Horn for improperly handling reimbursement requests submitted by Dunn.
http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202676922695/Investigation-Found-Dunn-Misled-Bar-Trustees-Breached-Fiduciary-Duties?mcode=1202615718827
Long live the ACJ.
Lando
November 19, 2014
Great post Wendy. As my Mom used to say, ” This couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people” .
Wendy Darling
November 20, 2014
Oh, Lando, that really made me laugh! And I couldn’t agree more.
You just can’t make this stuff up. Really.
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
November 20, 2014
LOL! Thanks for the comic relief, Lando.
Wendy Darling
November 20, 2014
Published today, Thursday, November 20, from The Metropolitan News Enterprise:
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Poole to Resign From Posts at Judicial Council
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Dia S. Poole has resigned, effective Dec. 31, as communications liason for the Judicial Council’s Office of Governmental Affairs.
Poole, who went to work for the now-abolished Administrative Office of the Courts 11 years ago, is also liason to the statewide Bench-Bar Coalition, comprised of judges and leaders of bar associations and legal services organizations.
She said in an e-mail to colleagues at the Judicial Council:
“Over the next few weeks, I will be moving back to the Inland Empire to be near my family who has waited patiently since 1995 for me to return from a 10-month fellowship at the State Capitol. After I get settled in and my family is tired of seeing me every day at dinnertime, I will be scouting around for some part-time, regional opportunities where I can be of service and be a productive citizen.”
Poole added:
“I will also be preparing to serve a two-year term as president of the statewide California State University Alumni Council, which is leading the celebration of the 3-millionth graduate from the CSU system in June 2015.
http://www.metnews.com/
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
November 20, 2014
Published today, Thursday, November 20, from The Metropolitan News Enterprise:
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Legislative Analyst’s Office Suggests Giving Courts Incentive to Push for Collection of Unpaid Fines, Fees
Says Latest Statistics Show Debts Amount to About $10.2 Billion
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The state Legislative Analyst’s Office has called for a restructuring of procedures for collecting unpaid fines, fees, and other “court ordered debts,” noting that about $10.2 billion is owed statewide.
An alarm over the amount of uncollected revenues was sounded two years ago by former Los Angeles County Counsel Lloyd Pellman. The LAO’s recommended approach mirrors his, to the extent that it is based on creating the incentive to pursue collections by giving the courts a larger share of the revenues.
Despite the take-over of trial courts by the state in 1997 as an adjunct of state funding, counties were left with the task of collecting “court ordered debts”—which, an LAO report says, includes all “fines, fees, forfeitures, penalty surcharges, assessments, and restitution assessed in the disposition of traffic and criminal cases.”
For courts and county agencies, there has been “a lack of clear fiscal incentives for programs to collect debt in a cost–effective manner or to maximize the total amount of debt they collect,” according to the report.
State law provides that if a trial court collects more than a specified amount of “fee, fine and forfeiture revenue,” half of the excess is to be placed in the statewide Trial Court Improvement Fund, with the other half going to the county general fund. Under Government Code §77205, the Judicial Council may distribute 80 percent of the moneys “each fiscal year that exceeds the amount deposited in the 2002-03 fiscal year” among “[t]he trial court in the county from which the revenue was deposited,” or “[o]ther trial courts,” or may retain them in the fund.
Pellman’s Suggestion
Pellman’s proposal, expressed in a letter to Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, and brought to the attention of the Judicial Council, was to institute a five-year pilot program under which the full 80 percent would be returned to the court that made the collection. Pellman, a partner in Nossaman LLP, explained that this would “provide at least a partial solution on at least a temporary basis” to the trial courts, which have pared services in light of slashed budgets.
The LAO’s recommendation is for a three-year pilot program. Courts—not county agencies—would undertake all collections, and procedures would be instituted to “reward courts for collecting cost–effectively or increasing the total amount collected.”
Under an “incentive model,” the report says, “once a court collects the same amount of total debt (both delinquent and non-delinquent) it collected in the fixed base year, the court would then be able to retain a set percentage of the amount of new revenue it collects above the amount collected in the fixed base year.”
25 Percent Commission
It recommends that the courts participating in the program be allowed to retain 25 cents out of every dollar they collect over and above the amounts they garnered in 2011-2012.
The report notes that because the money remitted to the court is tied to the total amount collected, “programs would no longer have an incentive to neglect non-delinquent collections.”
It observes that at present, “[b]ecause collection programs are not reimbursed for the costs of collecting non-delinquent debt, they have little fiscal incentive to use a large share of their resources to improve the collection of such debt, such as by purchasing kiosks or constructing payment windows to bypass security to make it easier for debtors to pay.”
The report was prepared by Anita Lee, a senior fiscal and policy analyst, and reviewed by Drew Soderborg, the managing principal analyst for the LAO’s Corrections, Transportation, and Environment Department.
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Long live the ACJ.
Jimmy
November 21, 2014
While the judicial branch could certainly do a better job of collecting court ordered debt, creating a system where trial courts receive a “commission” for the fines and fees collected creates a terrible precedent. The public perception of the courts is already low, and this concept will erode that perception even more. Judges will have no incentive to make decisions which are in the interest of justice and will instead be pressured into morphing into highly paid debt collectors in order to preserve the economic bottom line of their individual court. Fines are already shockingly high, often more tha a week’s wages for most defendants. To turn the judicial branch into a for profit venture is not the right direction fo us to go, in my opinion.