A third-year member of the bar’s board of governors, Van de Kamp chairs its Regulation, Admissions and Discipline Committee and was instrumental this past year in expanding the operating hours of the State Bar’s discipline consumer hotline.

He said during his term as president he wants to focus on strategies to increase diversity within the profession, encourage pro bono service, improve benefits for members of the bar and continue the progress the bar has made in public protection.

“We need to stand for lawyers, but we need to stand for the public at the same time,” Van de Kamp said. “These two things are by no means inconsistent.”

Van de Kamp is a partner and of counsel at the Los Angeles offices of Dewey Ballantine LLP. He was elected California’s attorney general in 1982 and served two terms. Before that, he spent eight years as Los Angeles District Attorney, served as a federal public defender in Los Angeles and director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys under Deputy Attorney General Warren Christopher in Washington, D.C. Van de Kamp also ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1990.

He is currently president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, a position he will resign July 1, and the California Historical Society and is a member of the American and Los Angeles bar associations.

Van de Kamp was elected bar president in a four-way race. The other candidates were Vivian Kral of Redwood City, Windie O. Scott of Sacramento and Russell Roeca of San Francisco. The president’s term is one year.

Founded in 1927 by the legislature, the State Bar of California is an administrative arm of the California Supreme Court, serving the public and seeking to improve the justice system for more than 70 years. All lawyers practicing in California must be members of the State Bar. By May 2004, total membership reached 195,701, the largest state bar in the nation.

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