Report 2018-030 Recommendation 13 Responses

Report 2018-030: State Bar of California: It Should Balance Fee Increases With Other Actions to Raise Revenue and Decrease Costs (Release Date: April 2019)

Recommendation #13 To: Bar of California, State

To further its ability to operate more efficiently and reduce the backlog of discipline cases, State Bar should ensure consistency by December 2019 in the policy and guidance documents its staff follow when performing investigations work.

1-Year Agency Response

OCTC has reviewed its policy and guidance/training documents and, where necessary, edited them to ensure consistency among them. To the extent possible and necessary, the materials have been reconciled for consistency. Examples of training documents that demonstrate this consistency have been provided to the Auditor in support of this response.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

OCTC has reviewed policy and guidance documents, particularly related to the ENEC process identified in the Audit and determined that no change is needed in documents related to the ENEC process, at this time. In January 2019, Rule 5.30 of the Rules of Procedure of the was amended. One of the changes was to delete the language from subd. (a) that the times set forth in the rule were NOT extended by the method of computing time set forth in rule 5.28(A). As a consequence of this deletion, under the new rule the five-day mailing rule was inserted to apply to the 10-days' respondent has to respond to notice to request ENEC, thus giving the respondent 15 days. That, coupled with the 15 days the court has to hold the hearing under 5.30(A), means the ENEC process should take at most, 30 days. OCTC's training materials are consistent with those timelines. However, the actual scheduling of the ENEC date is not within OCTC's control. Rather, it is within the Court's control.

OCTC continues to review other policies, guidelines, and training materials for consistency. The evaluation of these documents will be an on-going effort, especially as we address other audit recommendations, such as developing benchmarks for steps in the investigation process. As we develop those steps, we will need to continue to revise relevant documents to ensure consistency with those benchmarks.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented

60-Day Agency Response

OCTC will review all of its existing policy and guidance related to investigations to ensure consistency.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: No Action Taken

State Bar has expressed that it will undertake the recommendation, but has not yet done so. As such, the status of this recommendation is 'No Action Taken.'

All Recommendations in 2018-030

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.