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Both arbitration and mediation involve a neutral third party. In arbitration, the arbitrator hears evidence and arguments, and then issues a decision that may be binding or nonbinding. In mediation, the mediator helps the parties reach their own voluntary agreement.
No. Both sides must agree to mediation. The State Bar will notify the opposing party if mediation is requested.
If you received a Notice of Client’s Right to Fee Arbitration form from the attorney, you have 30 days from the date you received it to submit your arbitration request form to the program. You must also submit your arbitration request if you first wish to mediate the fee dispute.
If you do not file the request form within 30 days of receiving the notice, you will lose your right to arbitrate your fee dispute. A telephone call or letter to the program requesting arbitration will not protect that right. You must be sure that the request form is complete and submitted with any required filing fee.
If the attorney has already filed a lawsuit against you for unpaid fees, you may elect either to respond to the lawsuit or request fee arbitration. If you file a response to the lawsuit, you will lose your right to arbitrate the fee dispute. If you request arbitration, the lawsuit will be stayed, but you should file the appropriate notice of automatic stay with the court. To preserve your right to arbitrate, you should file a request for arbitration promptly.
Your request for mediation is part of the State Bar request for arbitration, so it will follow the same timelines listed above.
No. The mediator will not decide any issues related to attorney misconduct and/or malpractice and has no authority to make any determinations regarding the attorney’s conduct or to discipline attorneys for professional misconduct.
If you wish to file a disciplinary complaint with the State Bar of California about your attorney’s conduct, you may do so online. Please keep in mind that a discipline complaint and a request to arbitrate and mediate a fee dispute are separate matters. Filing a complaint may result in disciplinary action against the attorney; however, the result may or may not require the attorney to refund fees.
To help you decide whether to file a complaint, visit the Want to File a Complaint webpage.
If you think you have a separate claim for legal malpractice, you should seek legal counsel.
If you are seeking a refund of attorney’s fees that you have already paid, you may request fee mediation as a preliminary option along with arbitration as long as you are still within the legal time limit for filing a lawsuit about the fee dispute. To preserve your right to arbitrate, and to potentially mediate a fee dispute, you should file a request for arbitration promptly.
For disputes filed with the State Bar, simply check the box agreeing to mediate on the request for fee arbitration form. Some local bar associations offer fee mediation in addition to fee arbitration. Find local fee arbitration programs.
Yes. Mediation is voluntary and either side can decline to mediate. All parties must agree for a mediation to go forward.
Mediations will take place by videoconference. Usually, the parties are in separate areas to start but may be brought together later in the process. The mediator will typically meet separately with one party, and then the other, to understand their perspectives and to identify areas of potential agreement. This “shuttle diplomacy” will take place until an agreement is reached, or until it is clear to the mediator that it is not possible for the parties to reach an agreement. If an agreement is reached, it will be memorialized in a writing called a settlement agreement.
You may be represented by an attorney, but it is not required. You can arrange for an interpreter to attend the mediation with you.
The mediation is confidential. This means that nothing said in a mediation can be used as evidence in any later proceeding by any party at the mediation.
The decision to agree to mediate is entirely up to you, but the attorney will also have to agree in order for the mediation to occur.
If the dispute is eligible to be filed with the State Bar for fee arbitration, you will have the option of agreeing to mediation as part of the request for arbitration. Some local bars also offer fee mediation, but most local programs only offer fee arbitration.
When you complete the Request for Arbitration with the State Bar, you will be asked to indicate whether you are interested in mediating the fee dispute. Once your request is accepted, including receipt of payment of the applicable fee arbitration filing fee, the State Bar will serve your request to the opposing party. As part of the opposing party’s written reply to the request, they will indicate whether they agree to mediate the fee dispute prior to arbitration.
If both parties agree to mediation, a mediator will be assigned to help you and attorney try to reach a settlement of your dispute, and you will receive further instructions at that time.
The State Bar does not refer clients to lawyers or provide legal advice. We provide a directory of certified Lawyer Referral Services in your area who may be able to help you find a lawyer. Please see our Find Legal Professionals section for resources. The State Bar also publishes free legal information for consumers.
If you believe your lawyer has done something wrong, you can file a complaint with the State Bar. Complaints may be submitted online or by mail. If you have questions or need assistance in completing the form, call the State Bar’s Attorney Complaint Hotline at 800-843-9053. For more information on reporting a lawyer to the State Bar and handling other problems, read the legal guide If You Have a Problem with an Attorney.
If you have a complaint about a certified or uncertified LRS, you can file a complaint against the service with the State Bar. In order to promote public protection, the State Bar will review your complaint to determine if the LRS has violated Business and Professions Code Section 6155 and State Bar Rules.
For more information on certified lawyer referral services, contact LRS@calbar.ca.gov.
The due date is by March 30, or the next business day if that date falls on a weekend or holiday, each year during the annual license renewal process. The 2025 annual deadline is April 1, 2025. If you miss the deadline, you will be charged a penalty ($103 for active attorneys, $31 for inactive attorneys).
Activities that qualify for general MCLE credit must: (1) relate to legal subjects that are directly relevant to California attorneys, and (2) offer current, significant educational, professional, or practical content with the specific objective of increasing each participant’s professional competency as an attorney. Programs created primarily for nonattorney audiences (for example, general public, clients, or business staff) do not qualify and will not be approved for general MCLE credit. More on Standards for MCLE activity Approval.
IOLTA stands for Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts. Attorneys deposit client funds that they plan to hold briefly, or that are too small to earn interest for the client, into larger shared accounts. Over 73,000 attorneys make deposits in approximately 49,000 IOLTA accounts in California. As of September 2019, IOLTA accounts hold nearly $5 billion. Any interest earned on these accounts is paid by financial institutions to the State Bar, which in turn distributes those funds as grants to qualified nonprofit civil legal organizations throughout the state.
Refer to the State Bar’s IOLTA FAQ page for more information.
Yes. The State Bar earned the gold tier DEI Leadership Seal in January 2024. The State Bar recruited three impartial external reviewers to review and score the State Bar’s application and submitted materials.
Yes. The 2025 annual fees will be available to calculate and pay online through My State Bar Profile effective February 1, 2025.
You will be notified by email when you can access your annual fees through My State Bar Profile. It’s very important to update your contact information for official State Bar use so you’ll receive these and other important notifications. Group payments must be made through Agency Billing.
The commission explored the phase of the discipline process. The ENEC is a settlement conference held before OCTC files a Notice of Disciplinary Charge and its purpose is for all parties to obtain a judicial evaluation of the case. Attorneys facing discipline for criminal conviction matters are not given the option to settle their cases with an ENEC because the current statutory timeline does not allow sufficient time for an ENEC to be offered, scheduled, and conducted. Business and Professions Code section 6101 requires OCTC to transmit criminal conviction cases to the State Bar Court Review Department within 30 days of receipt if it determines that the case may or does involve moral turpitude.
As a result, the commission recommended that the Board of Trustees:
You can file a complaint online. If you prefer, you can download a complaint form, fill it out, and return it by mail. If you have questions about what information to provide on a complaint form, please call 800-843-9053.
The Leadership Bank program recognizes financial institutions that elect to waive fees and pay the established compliance interest rate, thereby increasing funding for free civil legal aid to low-income Californians through the Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program. Civil legal aid ensures that low-income individuals and families have access to attorneys and the legal system to address critical legal issues.
The Commission on Judicial Performance is the independent state agency responsible for investigating complaints of judicial misconduct and judicial incapacity and for disciplining judges. Here are instructions for filing a complaint against a judge.
For Trial Court: Two or more commissioners, at least one of whom is an attorney member; for Supreme and Appellate Courts: Three or more commissioners, at least one of whom is a public member.
No, that is entirely a gubernatorial prerogative.
Up to two years from the date of the activity.
Prerecorded programs only qualify for self-study MCLE credit if the provider is able to verify attendance. If this is the case, then the prerecorded program may be eligible for participatory MCLE credit.
Yes, the same instruction time can be allocated to a legal specialty area and to one of the subfields.
Payment and scaling declaration must be received by the State Bar of California no later than April 1, 2025, to qualify under the fee scaling criteria. Payments and fee scaling declarations submitted after April 1, 2025, will incur a penalty. The penalty will be eligible for fee scaling but reinstatement fees, if applicable, are not eligible for scaling.
Yes, the fee scaling declaration is available online through your My State Bar Profile.
Your participation in this program is voluntary to resolve the debt that is owed to the State Bar. If you choose not to take advantage of the Fresh Start Settlement Program, the State Bar reserves all rights to pursue, or continue to pursue, any and all available legal remedies to recover the total owed debt, including without limitation reporting the debt to FTB, credit reporting agencies, entry of a Superior Court money judgment and/or pursuing legal actions.
If you were an active or voluntarily inactive licensee as of January 1, 2025 and do not participate in the Fresh Start Settlement Program, or are not able to reach a settlement, you are required to pay your outstanding discipline costs, monetary sanctions and/or Client Security Fund reimbursements as originally ordered by the Supreme Court of California, State Bar Court and/or the Client Security Fund. If you were granted an extension of time to pay costs, your extension order will still be valid.
If you reject the settlement offer and are experiencing extreme financial hardship, please enter an amount you would be able to pay on the feedback form or indicate in the comments that you are experiencing financial hardship. You will receive an email with a link to a questionnaire about your financial situation. All information and attachments will be kept securely and confidentially. The State Bar will review the answers in your questionnaire and email a response from eConciliador.
Settlements made through the Fresh Start Settlement Program will supersede any existing installment order from State Bar Court.
If you reach a settlement and complete payment through the Fresh Start Settlement Program, the State Bar will thereafter consider the eligible debt as itemized on your Fresh Start Settlement Program account paid in full for all purposes, including petitioning for reinstatement to the practice of law. This is not to imply reinstatement is automatic or guaranteed; standard reinstatement petition procedures would be required. Further, settlement through Fresh Start will not resolve outstanding probationary obligations or other outstanding costs, such as unpaid annual licensee fees and penalties, unpaid compliance fee and penalties, payments due to LAP, restitution due directly to individuals, etc. The program's settlement authority is limited to debt; we do not have legal authority to change other legal requirements for reinstatement to the practice of law.
For further information regarding reinstatement, please visit the State Bar Court website and see the FAQs. If you have a specific question about the court's reinstatement procedures that is not answered on the website, please call the court's main lines: 213-765-1400 in Los Angeles and 415-538-2050 in San Francisco. However, the court cannot provide specific advice on whether you are eligible for reinstatement.
Yes. Employers may choose to commit to and implement the Action Items for either their entire firm or only their California offices. If an employer commits to and implements the Action Items for specific offices, only those offices would be listed as participating employers and eligible to use the DEI Leadership Seal on their materials.
DEI Leadership Seal recipients who want to advance tiers must complete and submit a DEI Leadership Seal Tier Advancement Application and supporting documentation. The State Bar will provide several opportunities throughout the year for seal recipients to submit this documentation and advance tiers. Seal recipients that want to advance tiers must still submit an attestation form to affirm implementation of the Action Items for which their materials have already been reviewed and approved.
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