Yes. Pending criminal matters must be disclosed, and convictions dismissed pursuant to section 1203.4 must be disclosed.

No. Neither indebtedness nor bankruptcy is necessarily relevant to a moral character determination. Moral character issues may arise if indebtedness was handled irresponsibly, or bankruptcy was used to defraud creditors.

You should list people who are knowledgeable about you and do not appear as an employment reference elsewhere in the application. Additionally, your personal references may not be related to you by blood or marriage.

No. Some references may not be contacted. You may wish to remind your references to check their email spam folders periodically and to use the Google Chrome internet browser, if possible, when submitting the questionnaires to avoid potential technical issues.

No. However, you will receive a courtesy copy of your application via email for your records. 

After an application has been submitted, you will not be able to access the application or make any edits to it in the Applicant Portal. You should submit updates or amendments by posting the information to your moral character case feed.

No. The State Bar is unable to extend the period to request administrative review. The Committee will decide whether to accept an untimely request for administrative review.

Please check to make sure all of your accounts have been registered in Step 2. If all your accounts have been registered, the required account ending balance may be missing in Step 2. You must provide the account ending balance as of December 31 of the reporting period or the date the account was closed.

If all your accounts have been registered and each account has a balance, please review your responses in Step 1. If you chose multiple “Yes” answers requiring trust account registration, for example, in Step 1, in response to question 1 (IOLTAs), you selected “Yes, I will provide or update IOLTA (or similar pooled) account information, including the balance as of December 31, 2025, via My State Bar Profile …” and, in response to question 2 (non-IOLTAs), you also selected “Yes, I will provide or update non-IOLTA account information, including the balance as of December 31, 2025, via My State Bar Profile …,” based on your selected responses you are required to register both an IOLTA and a non-IOLTA trust account via My State Bar Profile. If you only have one trust account, please revise your response to either question 1 or question 2. A trust account can never be both an IOLTA and a non-IOLTA.

Similarly, if you selected multiple “Yes” responses requiring trust account registration to question 1 (e.g., “Yes, I will provide or update IOLTA account information, including the balance as of December 31, 2025, via My State Bar Profile” and “Yes, a firm or organization I am currently employed by or in practice with will provide or update IOLTA account information, including the balance as of December 31, 2025, via Agency Billing …”), based on your selected responses, you are required to register multiple IOLTAs via My State Bar Profile and Agency Billing. If you only have one IOLTA, please revise your responses to question 1 in Step 1.

With very few exceptions (see FAQ 2.3 below), all licensees who held an active license status at ANY time during the reporting period must complete the CTAPP reporting requirements. For 2026, the reporting period is January 1–December 31, 2025. This includes those licensees whose status changed to voluntary inactive at any time during the reporting period.

Rule 1.15 requires attorneys who handle trust funds to hold those funds in one or more interest-bearing bank accounts labeled as a “Trust Account,” or words of similar import. If, at any point in the reporting period, you were responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15—other than the disclosure and agreement requirements in rule 1.15(b) pertaining to depositing a flat fee paid in advance into a lawyer’s or law firm’s operating account—(e.g., responsibilities for the safekeeping of funds, identifying and discharging of liens, notifying clients that funds have been received, etc.), regardless of whether someone else ultimately performed this function, you are required to have a trust account. If the firm’s trust account(s) are available funds for the deposit of your client’s funds, then that trust account/those trust accounts are maintained, at least in part, on your behalf.

Therefore, if at any point in the reporting period, you were responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15—other than the disclosure and agreement requirements in rule 1.15(b) pertaining to depositing a flat fee paid in advance into a lawyer’s or law firm’s operating account—you should answer, “Yes, a firm or organization I am currently employed by or in practice with …,” “Yes, however, I am no longer employed by or in practice with the firm or organization …,” or both to at least one of the questions in CTAPP Step 1 (Annual Client Trust Account Reporting) and thereafter complete the remaining CTAPP requirements. If your firm administrator will register the IOLTA and/or non-IOLTA account details on your behalf through the State Bar’s Agency Billing application, you may check the checkbox to indicate that in Step 2 (Account Registration).

If you have further questions about trust accounts, including whether you are responsible for complying with rule 1.15, whether you need a trust account, the rules of trust accounting, the recent changes to the rules regarding the safekeeping of funds, etc., please contact the State Bar’s Ethics Hotline research service at 800-238-4427 (toll-free in California). The Ethics Hotline cannot provide legal advice, nor tell you how to comply with any of the CTAPP requirements, including whether to answer “yes” or “no” in any portion of the CTAPP reporting requirements.

As a sole practitioner, you likely maintain the account yourself or have a bookkeeper maintain the account and have access to the account information (e.g., routing number, account number, balance, etc.). If so, you can provide or update the account information via My State Bar Profile. 

The “firm or organization I am currently employed by or in practice with will provide or update the account information via Agency Billing” option is for lawyers who do not have access to the account information and who have a firm administrator who uses the State Bar’s Agency Billing platform, and the administrator will register the firm trust accounts on behalf of the firm lawyers. If this applies to you, you may select that answer in Step 1 and, in Step 2 (Account Registration), if the firm administrator has not already registered the account details, you will select the checkbox next to “My firm or organization administrator informed me that the IOLTA and/or Non-IOLTA account details will be reported by my firm or organization on my behalf through the State Bar's Agency Billing application. I understand that it is my responsibility to ensure that my CTAPP reporting is complete, including that my firm or organization reports any account details maintained on my behalf.” It is your responsibility to ensure that all necessary account details are registered, including the December 31 balance. You should be sure to confirm with your firm administrator that they will register the required information via the State Bar’s Agency Billing platform by the deadline.

A subordinate lawyer may consult a supervisory lawyer to confirm that duties that are not personally performed are being properly discharged by others in the firm. For example, a subordinate lawyer may ask the attorney who manages the firm’s client trust accounts whether monthly reconciliations are performed on the client trust accounts. 

Absent information to the contrary, the subordinate lawyer may reasonably rely on that guidance in completing the self-assessment.

Yes. The course includes a Final Assessment. You must receive a passing score of 80 percent to complete the course.

Please see the complete list on the Reporting Requirements webpage.

Contact the Department of Legal Specialization at 415-538-2120 or fill out the Licensee Records and Compliance Inquiry Form.

The deadline to show proof of compliance is stated on your MCLE Audit Notice.  If you fail to submit adequate proof of compliance by the deadline, you will be assessed a $103 penalty for late compliance, and you will receive a Non-Compliance Notice that gives you 60 days to comply.  If you do not submit adequate proof of compliance and pay the late fee within that time period, you will be placed on Not Eligible to Practice status until you submit the required proof of compliance, pay the $103 non-compliance fee, and pay an additional $308 reinstatement fee.

If you are unable to locate your certificates or proof of course completion, please contact your provider immediately to request a copy of the attendance certificate or a printout. Many providers are happy to assist. However, please note that California MCLE course providers are not required to issue replacement certificates. The State Bar only mandates that they provide the original certificate received upon course completion.

After the initial submission of the updated 2025 Attorney Census, attorneys are asked to review their responses once a year. 

Once you have logged your courses into the online summary log, you must submit a Licensee Records and Compliance Inquiry with a copy of your certificates or other proof of course completion.

Or by mail:
MCLE Audit Team
Licensee Regulation and Compliance
The State Bar of California
180 Howard St.
San Francisco, CA  94105

All funds received by a lawyer in connection with legal representation in which a client or a third party has an interest are funds that must be deposited in a trust account. Examples include advances for fees received from clients (until they are earned by the lawyer), funds of others that are being held for disbursement at a later time, personal injury awards, and litigation settlements. 

Client and third-party funds must be held in either an IOLTA or non-IOLTA type client trust account. The definitions of each are as follows: 

IOLTA—An attorney or firm that holds funds for a client or third party that are nominal in amount or are held for too short a time to earn interest income for the benefit of the client or third party in excess of the cost to hold the funds in a separate account is required to place those funds in an IOLTA account. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6211, subd. (a)). A California IOLTA account must be established and maintained with an eligible institution that offers IOLTA accounts that meet certain requirements. The State Bar website has a list of IOLTA-eligible institutions. 

Non-IOLTA—An attorney or firm that holds funds for a client or the benefit of a single party in a matter that is large enough to generate more than nominal interest, or an attorney who holds funds for a single party for an extended period must hold such funds in a non-IOLTA trust account. An example would be funds held by the administrator of a family trust. The attorney must use a non-IOLTA account because these entrusted funds will earn interest in excess of the costs to maintain the account. The interest earned goes to the client or third party. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6211, subd. (b)).

When registering a client trust account as part of CTAPP, you must identify the trust account type. The account will either be IOLTA or non-IOLTA; an account will never be both. The account type was established at the time the account was opened and does not change. A California IOLTA must bear the State Bar of California’s Taxpayer Identification Number to ensure that interest or dividends generated by this account will be paid to the State Bar’s IOLTA program. A non-IOLTA will bear the Social Security Number or Tax ID number of the client or third party.

If you have already completed your CTAPP reporting for the current period and you want to change an answer before the reporting deadline, you can access the CTAPP reporting page by logging in to My State Bar Profile. On your Client Trust Reporting page (third blue tab at the top), click the CTAPP Annual Reporting tile. You can click through the pop-up warning that says you have already submitted your CTAPP Annual Reporting declaration and that you will have to resubmit your declaration, or you will be out of compliance. NOTE: Even if you make no changes, be sure to click all the way through and resubmit your declaration.