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).

Arbitration hearings are informal, but you should obtain a copy of the rules of procedure from the program handling your fee dispute to educate yourself with the process.

The program will assign your dispute to a volunteer attorney arbitrator who must be licensed in good standing with the State Bar. Depending on the amount of your fee dispute, the panel will consist of one attorney arbitrator, or a three-member panel consisting of two attorney arbitrators and one nonattorney arbitrator.

You may be represented by an attorney, but it is not required. You may also arrange for an interpreter to attend the hearing with you. If you would like moral support, ask the arbitrator if a family member or friend can accompany you to the hearing.

Both you and the attorney will have a chance to make statements, ask each other questions, and present evidence—such as letters, billing statements, or the fee agreement. You may also present witnesses, for example, someone who heard you and your attorney agree to the fee. If you have problems obtaining documents needed for the hearing from the opposing attorney, you may ask the arbitration panel to intervene.

Fee arbitration hearings are confidential and are closed to the public. Most local bar programs don’t allow arbitration hearings to be recorded or transcribed due to confidentiality rules.

Also, keep in mind that fee arbitration aims to determine if the fees charged were appropriate for the attorney’s work on your case. Arbitrators may consider the attorney’s performance in your case to reach their decision, but they cannot award any additional money for what may be attorney malpractice or professional misconduct.

Courses required by AB 1825 (mandatory sexual harassment awareness and prevention training for personnel managers) are approved for recognition and elimination of bias MCLE credit.

Please email refund@calbar.ca.gov.

If you choose to arbitrate, the attorney must participate in most cases. Exceptions include these situations:

• Fees set by law or the courts, such as the ordinary charges for probating a will, or attorney’s fees that a judge orders one spouse to pay the other in a divorce.
• Fees charged by an attorney who is not a licensee of the State Bar of California, who does not have offices in California, and who did the majority of the work for you out of state.
• Fee disputes in which you or the attorney filed a suit, and the attorney notified you of your right to arbitrate, using the required State Bar form, but you filed a suit or answered a suit in court before requesting arbitration.
• Fee disputes in which you are not the attorney’s client, unless you paid fees to the attorney for a client.

Up to two years from the date of the activity.

You can download and print a paper bar card or order a plastic card after you log in to My State Bar Profile and pay your fees.