Report from the September 2007 Meeting

The meeting on September 20 and 21, 2007, coincided with the WSBA annual meeting and awards dinner. There were three very significant items on the agenda. The first was the report of the Trust Account Responsibilities and Retainers Task Force (“TARRTF”). This task force was charged with coming up with revisions to RPC 1.5 and 1.15A to clearly define an attorney’s responsibilities with respect to retainer fees, prepaid fees, and flat fees. One item of controversy was whether a flat fee should be considered earned, and thus the attorney’s property, upon receipt, or whether it must be deposited into a trust account and withdrawn only as the attorney completed representation tasks. The final proposed rule defines flat fees as fully earned upon receipt by the attorney. Another item of controversy was how to handle fee disputes under the rule and whether to require parties to submit to a formal fee dispute resolution program, like the one run by the WSBA. Instead, the final rule requires only that, within 30 days of the accrual of a fee dispute, the attorney deposit into a trust account the portion of the fee the attorney believes in dispute, where it remains until resolution of the dispute. The BOG passed the TARRTF proposed rules.

Next the BOG took up recommendations by the Committee on Public Defense. The most controversial of these came from the Standards Subcommittee. At issue were the public defender caseload standards; specifically, a dispute over how to set caseload standards for misdemeanors. One proposal was to set a maximum of 300 misdemeanor cases per year, but that any given defender entity could adjust the standard upward to 400 upon a showing of certain factors. The alternate proposal was to set the maximum at 400, but this could be adjusted downward to 300, again based on certain factors. The BOG debated these points at length and ultimately endorsed the 300-case standard with the ability to adjust up to 400.

The final significant issue was the passage of the 2007—2008 WSBA budget. A few items required extensive discussion, including whether to fund a Spokane bar exam and the Young Lawyer Division’s statewide GAAP proposal. Of these issues, the BOG decided to commission an implementation plan to hold a summer 2009 bar exam in Spokane. The Board reserved the issue on whether to actually fund such a venture until a later time. The BOG expressed a number of concerns with the GAAP proposal as stated, so I requested that the Board allow the GAAP subcommittee an opportunity to retool the proposal in light of the concerns expressed and present a new proposal by the March 2008 meeting for possible inclusion in the current year’s budget. The Board agreed with this proposal.

The BOG also undertook a number of more routine matters, including a variety of committee, board, and panel appointments, as well as selection of Michael Heatherly as the new WSBA Bar News editor. Finally, the BOG adopted changes recommended by the Long Range Planning Committee to the WSBA mission statement, guiding principles, and strategic goals.