The Board of Governors of the Washington State Bar Association is under the statute the executive agency of the Association. We have what is known under our statute as an integrated bar. The powers of the bar are vested in the Board of Governors by statute, with the right of the Board of Governors to make such rules for the governing of the Association as it deems expedient for that purpose

Schweppe, Alfred J.

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Washington Law Review Volume 30 Number 4 Annual Meeting of the Washington State Bar Association 11-1-1955 Report of Board of Governors Alfred J. Schweppe Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr Recommended Citation Alfred J. Schweppe, State Bar Journal, Report of Board of Governors, 30 Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 268 (1955). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol30/iss4/2 This State Bar Journal is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at UW Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington Law Review by an authorized editor of UW Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact cnyberg@uw.edu. STATE BAR JOURNALREPORT OF BOARD OF GOVERNORSBy Alfred J. Schweppe, PresidentThe Board of Governors of the Washington State Bar Associationis under the statute the executive agency of the Association. We havewhat is known under our statute as an integrated bar. The powersof the bar are vested in the Board of Governors by statute, with theright of the Board of Governors to make such rules for the govern-ing of the Association as it deems expedient for that purpose.The Board of Governors is selected, as you know, from each of thesix congressional districts for staggered terms of three years. ThePresident is selected by the Board of Governors and holds his officefor one year, and he is an ex officio Member of the Board and has thepower to preside at the meetings and carry out the directions of theBoard for that term, and has no power to vote unless there is a divi-sion. And I desire to say that this year at least this particular Presidenthas had no occasion to exercise the voting power. That shows theunanimity with which this Board functions.The Board of Governors has many meetings which you are notaware of, but the Board on the average meets once a month, one ortwo days, and sometimes special meetings have to be called to dealwith the particular problems to which the Board addresses itself underthe statute.First, is admission to the Bar. The admission to the Bar under theState Bar Act is one of the administrative functions of the Board ofGovernors, subject to final review by the Supreme Court. The Boardpasses upon the qualifications of the applicants for admission.administers the rules governing admission, and appoints the Board ofBar Examiners which examines the applicants. The Board acts on thereport of the law examiners and then recommends to the SupremeCourt those who, in its judgment, are qualified to practice law.May I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that the particular job ofpassing on the applicants, not only from the State of Washington butfrom all over the United States, whose previous records have to bescreened, takes a substantial amount of the Board's time.The second function of the Board which takes a large portion ofits time, and probably the greatest portion of its time, is the matter ofdiscipline. The volume of this work is considerable.May I say first, under the statute and the rules which relate toadmission and disbarment, which rules are also approved by the[WINTERANNUAL MEETINGSupreme Court, the machinery for investigation of complaints by thepublic about lawyers is under the jurisdiction of the Board ofGovernors.In each Judicial District there is a Local Administrative Committeecomposed of three or more lawyers who have the duty of investigatingcomplaints at the local level. If that committee thinks that the com-plaint is unfounded it may recommend to the Board of Governors thatit be dismissed from further investigation and dismissed. If the admin-istrative committee makes a report to the Board of Governors thataction is required, the Board of Governors reviews the matter, and ifit agrees with the Local Administrative Committee, it sets the matterdown for trial. The trial is held before a Trial Committee of threeconsisting of one Member of the Board of Governors other than fromthe district in which the complaint is lodged and two other disinter-ested lawyers. When the trial is completed before a court reporter,and with full participation of counsel for the Association and ofcounsel for the person charged, the Trial Committee reports its findingsand recommendations to the Board. The Board then acts on thefindings and orders either a dismissal or reprimand or reference to theSupreme Court for suspension or disbarment.Now, to give you some idea of the volume of work from April 1st,1954 to August 31st, 1955, I call your attention to the fact that duringthe last Association year eighty complaints were acted upon by theBoard of Governors. Forty-seven were dismissed on recommendationof Local Administrative Committees. Eight were held for furtherinvestigation. Six were referred for trial. Two lawyers were repri-manded. One was referred to the Legal Ethics Committee for anopinion. One resignation was accepted. One was suspended and hasnot been reinstated, and there was one recommendation to theSupreme Court for disbarment. That record is in Olympia awaitingaction. There are eleven cases pending before the Board.You will note from the fact that there were eighty complaints whichreached the Board and that the Local Administrative Committees andthe Board itself have been busily working throughout the last year.In that respect I would like to make known to the lawyers who arepresent the vast volume of work that this entails not only by theLocal Administrative Committees but also by members of the Boardof Governors, who give probably one month of their professional lifeeach year to the work of the Association and countless hours of theirtime passing upon this particular phase of their professional work1955]STATE BAR JOURNALbecause in every particular case each member makes it his businessto learn all the facts before he decides what should be done. I wantto call your attention to the fact that in reviewing the work of the barassociations throughout the United States throughout a period of years,it was the opinion of the President of the American Bar Associationthat he found in this state one of the finest plans for investigation anddiscipline of alleged misconduct by lawyers existing anywhere-apattern so good that it .is now going to be considered for jurisdictionsin which it is legally possible to do so.Judge Orie L. Phillips, of the Circuit Court of Appeals, TenthCircuit, said at Bellingham two years ago that one of the fine thingsof the Washington Bar Association procedure is that the rights of thelawyer at every stage of the proceedings and of the complainant atevery stage of the proceedings are fully protected.All disciplinary hearings are private. They are executive sessionsfor the reason that our Board of Governors believe that the chargesagainst a lawyer are not to be publicly aired until after completeinvestigation at all stages it is found that he should be disciplined byway of suspension or disbarment. He has right of counsel and tosubpoena witnesses and to be fully heard at all stages. It is only ifit is determined by the Board of Governors that the offense is onefor which substantial discipline in the form of suspension or disbar-ment is required that the record becomes public on being filed withthe Supreme Court for final action.It is an excellent plan and protects the lawyer against the conse-quences of untoward publicity where he may be innocent of anywrongdoing. The fact is that many complaints are made againstlawyers as a result of misunderstandings, some by professional crack-pots, and some by disappointed litigants because they have lost acase, in which although they have been well-represented, they thinktheir loss is the lawyer's fault. All these complaints are very care-fully screened, and when a hearing is held, a full statement of factsis taken so that it can be carefully considered. It is a very importantresponsibility.Under our rules there are three stages of the investigation for theprotection of the lawyer. First, the Local Administrative Committeeinvestigation at the local level; second, if the report of the localcommittee appears prima facie to call for a trial, there is the trialbefore a trial committee of three before a court reporter; the trialcommittee making formal findings and recommendations which, third,[WINTERANNUAL MEETINGthen goes to the Board of Governors for final review and recommend-ation to the Supreme Court. You are all aware, of course, that theBoard of Governors has no final power of discipline or disbarment.That power is in the Supreme Court.I want to say that ours is one of the best disciplinary plans in forceanywhere.To highlight procedures in some other places my attention wascalled about six weeks ago to a suit brought by a lawyer in one ofthe Eastern States against a local newspaper that gave untoward pub-licity to a charge which was brought against him in that state, andwhich was finally dismissed as without foundation. He sued for alarge amount of damages because his practice had been ruined,because that charge was held over his head and was publicly aired inthe press until it was finally disposed of in his favor. His suit fordamages went up to the appellate court which held that he was with-out redress. The appellate court held that even though the chargeagainst him was given such damaging publicity he had no redress, andthat it could not give him any relief.I want to assure you that passing on complaints against lawyers isone of the most important things that the Board of Governors does,and all of us are indebted to the Board for the high-minded andcareful manner in which it performs that particular function.There are some other matters that have been accomplished by theAssociation during the past year that I want to call to your attention.May I say parenthetically that I will not detail all of the workof the committees of the Association. Most of the reports have beenpublished in the Washington State Bar News, and some particularones will also be before you in this convention. I am going to high-light to you matters which I think you as Members of the Bar areparticularly interested in and not go into ,detail on matters that willbe otherwise covered.One of the important accomplishments was the work of theLegislative Committee, headed by Colonel Orndorff of Spokane.- Hewill make a report to you. I will say that during the past year ColonelOrndorff has done an especially fine job, and George R. Stuntz, ofSeattle, has done one of the most effective jobs of getting throughthe legislative session bills that were deemed to be in the specialinterest to the bar, and in blocking bills that were deemed unwise.We have a Legal Ethics Committee which does a great deal of hard1955] .STATE BAR JOURNALwork. In the course of the past year, it was called upon for eightopinions, some of which have appeared in the State Bar News.We have the Committee on Unauthorized Practice, which has donea tremendous work in the past year. It has met and worked outagreements with the banks as to the work that falls within the fieldof the lawyers. May I say that an agreement has been reached anda set of rules has been transmitted to the banks which we are advisedare very acceptable. Among other things, a bank's lawyer can advisea bank, but he should not advise a customer of the bank who wouldnot otherwise come to him.A similar set of rules was worked out with the escrow and titlecompanies. Moreover, a good many conferences were had in thepast year with committees of real estate men for the purpose ofworking out legitimate areas of law practice in that field.In connection with the latter, may I say this, that no program ofunauthorized practice can be carried out by any state bar associationor its committees without full approval and support of the local barassociations. That is true of all state associations. We can developa plan and burn midnight oil, but every plan to be made effective inthe state has to be supported by members of the local bar associationin that community.With respect to the real estate conveyancing we found that somelawyers at least merited criticism because when called upon they didnot render efficient and timely service for people who are interestedin reasonably quick transferral of property. We have advised thelocal bar associations to give this matter consideration, and that thiscriticism is not entirely unfounded, and that we must be proficient inrendering that service. There will be a further report upon this sub-ject, and I bring these comments to your attention on behalf of theBoard of Governors because of the prodigious amount of work doneby that committee during the past association year. I will say furtherthat the Committee on Unauthorized Practice has instituted certaincriminal and civil proceedings in this state where the conduct was soaggravated that it did not seem to be within the realm of innocentmalpractice.Our Public Relations Committee has done an outstanding job.Those of you who have registered at the desk have seen the pamphletswhich were distributed under the auspices of that committee. Thatcommittee has caused to be published in the newspapers of the statearticles on legal problems that a layman ought to be advised about.[WINTERANNUAL MEETINGThe manner in which the Committee on Continuing Legal Education.functions, you have had an opportunity to see at this convention. TheCommittee on Continuing Legal Education, under the outstandingleadership of Clarence Coleman, has put on an enlarged program ofcontinuing legal education for lawyers after they have becomemembers of the Bar, in order to enable them to keep abreast of thecurrent legal problems so that they may more accurately advise theirclients. I am delighted to say that during the past year the expensethat committee has gone to in furthering continuing legal educationfor lawyers has far more than paid for itself within a relatively shorttime.The Committee on American Citizenship has accomplished much.It has been in constant communication with the educational institu-tions in the state and with public institutions for the purpose offurtherance of the American form of civil law and order. The Chair-man of the Committee, Mrs. Helen Graham Greear of Bremerton,who is here in the front row, has advised me that that program cannotfunction properly unless all the members of the local bar associationsbecome active in their communities and have a realization of theirresponsibilities by virtue of the fact that they hold a public license topractice, and recognize that they have a duty to further the programand undertake the supervision in their own local area.There are committees on the program who will speak for them-selves, and I will not highlight at this moment what they have to say.I would like to give you this further information about the opera-tion of the Board of Governors. As you know, the executive office ofthe Association is in Seattle, headed by our able Executive Secretary,Mrs. Alice O'Leary Ralls, together with her staff who are conductingthe convention. The Board of Governors holds most of its meetingsat Seattle where the permanent records are. However, the Board hasfrom time to time accepted invitations from the local bar associations,if it happened to fit in with the local program, to hold meetings of theBoard of Governors in other cities, and to meet with the local asso-ciations. At the same time the Committee on Continuing Legal Educa-tion has put on legal institutes of the type you have seen here atYakima. I pass on that word because if there are members of localbar associations present who in the next calendar year would like toinvite the Committee on Continuing Legal Education and the Boardto come there, the Board of Governors, within reasonable limits, will1955]STATE BAR JOURNALprobably accept those invitations because I believe it is importantthat the Board of Governors acquaint the Bar throughout the Statewith the work of the association.ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENTAlfred J. SchweppeLast week I had the privilege, and so did some of the other personshere present, of attending at Philadelphia one of the greatest meetingsprobably ever held by the American Bar Association. There is prob-ably no place which is more ideal, except from a weather standpoint,for holding a convention of the American Bar Association than thehistoric City of Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independencewas written, where the first Continental Congress met, where theCongress of the United States and the Supreme Court sat for tenyears before they were removed to the District of Columbia, andwhere the Liberty Bell hangs, and where much of the history ofAmerican liberty has its setting.It was a distinguished convention in many ways. There were out-standing lawyers from all states of the United States. There werevery distinguished judges from the Supreme Court of the UnitedStates, the federal circuits, the several states and of the Court ofAppeals of England, and many past presidents of the American BarAssociation.Probably most significant, the meeting was addressed by the Presi-dent of the United States, by the Chief Justice of the United Statesand by the Vice-President of the United States, all on the occasion ofthe American Bar Association's observing the Two Hundredth Anni-versary of the birth of John Marshall, at whose funeral the LibertyBell tolled for the last time, and then cracked, its duty done-toremain a silent but eloquent memorial to the firm establishment ofliberty under the constitution.To bring you some idea of how important the recent Philadelphiameeting was in the national scheme and for the organized bar as such,I want to highlight one or two things that the President said in hisaddress. The President spoke of the troubled world in which we areliving, of the awakening in many peoples of an avid interest to choosefor themselves what type of law and order they want for their own[WINTER

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