Report from the July 2007 Meeting

The BOG met in Quincy, Washington from July 26 to 28, 2007, to conduct its annual retreat in conjunction with its regularly scheduled meeting. The retreat focused in part on the product of the WSBA Long-Range Planning Committee, on which sits WYLD President Mark O’Halloran. The committee presented its final report, including a restatement of the mission of the Bar Association and a greater degree of focus in its core missions. The BOG looks forward to a public discussion of the recommendations and Board action at its September meeting.

For this summertime meeting there was a great deal of administrative work to be handled by the Board. Predictably, these issues were generally straightforward and lacked controversy. For example, we approved a change to ELC 13.9 that increased fees and costs assessed upon lawyers subject to discipline in order to better recapture actual costs to the Bar Association. We also approved changes to APR 6, which governs the law clerk program, to add Indian Law as a required subject, to provide a mechanism for termination of a law clerk from the program, to add specific authorization to revise the program’s regulations, and to provide a means to refer applicants to the WSBA Character and Fitness Board when appropriate. Additionally, we conducted a great number of appointments to various boards. As is my general inclination, I made an effort to nominate qualified young lawyers for these positions. We selected members for the Washington State Bar Foundation’s Loan Repayment Program Advisory Committee, the Board for Court Education, Commission on Judicial Conduct, Judicial Recommendation Committee, and the MCLE Board.

The Board also handled a number of rule changes during this meeting. We passed the proposed APR 27 (including an amendment to RPC 5.5, comment 14) that will allow for admission of out-of-state lawyers to be admitted to Washington for the limited purpose of providing pro bono services following a major disaster in this state. The rule follows the ABA Model Court Rule on Provision of Legal Services Following Determination of Major Disaster. We also approved a number of rule changes recommended by the WSBA Court Rules and Procedures Committee. These included amendments to ER 408 and 410 to clarify the admissibility of offers to compromise and compromises themselves in criminal proceedings, and amendments to CrR/CrRLJ 8.3, RAP 2.2, and RALJ 2.2(c)(1) to codify the “Knapstad motion” into the court rules.

There were two controversial items that arose during the meeting. The first was a new proposed general rule, GR 34, that will create a uniform procedure for indigent litigants in civil cases to receive an in forma pauperis waiver of court costs and fees. The rule, proposed by the WSBA Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee, is intended to address the complications faced by pro se litigants arising from the lack of uniformity as well as simplifying the process utilized by pro bono and legal aid attorneys to get filing fee waivers for their clients. The rule, which I have actively worked on for two years, should greatly improve access to the courts by the poor while making pro bono service by volunteer attorneys more appealing. However, representatives from the Washington State Association of County Clerks appeared at the meeting to express their opposition to the rule. I was pleased by the support for the rule expressed by the BOG and gratified by its passage. It will now go to the Washington Supreme Court for its rulemaking, and I have continued my involvement to ensure that it gets shepherded through the process as well as possible.

The other controversial rule was proposed by the Non-Legislative Fixes for Enforcement of Standards Subcommittee of the WSBA Committee on Public Defense. The committee proposed changes to CrRLJ 4.1 and 4.2. A dispute was raised by the District and Municipal Court Judges Association to the proposed rule’s requirement that prosecutors be available for in-custody arraignments in courts of limited jurisdiction. The BOG considered the arguments on both sides of the question of whether such presence is necessary and should be mandated. Some governors wished to go beyond the recommendations of the committee and moved for adoption of a rule that required prosecutorial presence at all arraignments, not just in-custody arraignments. I believed that going beyond what I believed to be a prudent recommendation by the committee would make the rule less likely to successfully pass the Washington Supreme Court’s rulemaking process, and thus I moved to strike the language proposed by the governors. This was successful and the BOG passed the rule as recommended by the committee. The BOG further passed far less controversial proposals by the committee, including a proposal to recommend a two-track system for contempt of court proceedings and further study of mental illness and sex offender civil commitments.

As always, please contact me if you have any questions or have ideas about things you would like to see the BOG take up in future meetings.