Education
Aug. 14, 2002
Multijurisdictional Practice Rule Passes Over California Protests
WASHINGTON - California lawyers' concerns about the American Bar Association's first guidelines on multijurisdictional practice slowed the biannual meeting of the group's house of delegates on Monday, when State Bar delegates moved to stop a resolution provision they labeled discriminatory.
In the end, ABA delegates defeated the California amendment by a wide margin in a voice vote and passed the multijurisdictional-practice resolution - changing the model ethics rules to allow lawyers to engage in a limited practice of law in states where they are not admitted.
The resolution requires that lawyers wishing to cross state lines are admitted to their home state bar in good standing, have actively practiced law for five years and have not been subject to any discipline.
"Where and how we practice law has changed dramatically. This simply recognizes that things have changed," said Martha Barnett, a Tallahassee, Fla., attorney and former ABA president who has supported new policies.
At issue for many in the California caucus, however, was a portion of the multijurisdictional-practice resolution that says lawyers wishing to practice even temporarily in other states must be graduates of ABA-accredited law schools. California is rife with respected accredited institutions and institutions holding neither State Bar nor ABA accreditation, whose graduates will not be permitted to engage in multistate practices.
Most other states, however, prohibit graduates of non-ABA-accredited schools from being admitted to practice.
Specifically, the measure demands lawyers can only participate in a multijurisdictional practice if they graduated from a law school that was approved by the ABA "at the time the degree was conferred."
The action to block that provision was led by Los Angeles lawyer J. Anthony Vittal of Finestone, Richter & Vittal.
Disagreement over the resolution was the first real debate of the two-day house of delegates meeting, but it was Vittal's proposal to strike the requirement of ABA accreditation that brought the most ire.
"I speak on behalf of the tens of thousands of graduates of nonaccredited law schools in my home state of California," Vittal told delegates.
He said many ABA members and leaders who graduated from such schools would "be denied the ability accorded the lowest-ranking graduates of the ABA-accredited schools" for admission on motion.
"What we would be establishing is a criteria for admission based on pedigree, not on competence," Vittal said.
But Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, representing Florida's Center for Legal Education, said Vittal's notions flew in the face of reason, given the ABA's long history of accrediting law schools.
"If the proposed amendment were to pass, the effect would be to permit graduates of non-ABA-approved law schools in ever-increasing numbers to go basically anywhere in the United States to practice law," he said.
San Francisco lawyer Richard Phillips of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart rose to support Vittal.
"We simply think it's unfair to discriminate on admission to the bar based upon where one went to school," Phillips said.
But delegates were not convinced.
After the votes, Vittal - who as an alternate represented the Bar Association of San Francisco in the house - said he had not expected to succeed but wanted to raise awareness of the ABA-accreditation issue.
He also saw the issue as one of discrimination against minorities, who attend law schools not accredited by the ABA in great numbers. However, Vittal said he wanted to avoid distracting the house with a race issue.
"The effect of this falls disproportionately on working men and women and people of color, who are typically the people who attend [schools not accredited by the ABA]," he said.
Throwing the whole issue into relief Monday, the house of delegates approved giving full accreditation to Chapman University School of Law in Orange. The ABA had given the school provisional approval in February 1998, but Chapman still faces litigation from students who entered when the school opened in 1995 and graduated before it received formal ABA accreditation.
The ABA's first guidelines regulating multijurisdictional practice will seriously - and positively - impact the legal profession, A.P. Carlton, the incoming ABA president, said in an interview Monday.
"It facilitates multijurisdictional practice in a way that's consistent with regulation by individual states," Carlton said. "I think it's significant because it gives us a framework that we have sorely needed for the mobility of lawyers in American society."
Debate on Vittal's amendment helped to push other hotly anticipated items off the ABA delegates' agenda.
Today, the house will have to decide before noon Eastern Daylight Time (nine a.m. Pacific Daylight Time) whether to support resolutions in favor of human cloning, speeding up judicial confirmations and urging the federal government to account for non-U.S. citizens who have been detained in the war on terrorism.
James Gordon Meek
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