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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.
No. If you already reported criminal information to the State Bar in the moral character process or under the self-reporting mandate, you are not required to report the same information again.
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The State Bar certifies specialists in 11 areas: Admiralty & Maritime, Appellate, Bankruptcy, Criminal, Estate Planning, Family, Franchise & Distribution, Immigration, Legal Malpractice, Taxation, and Workers' Compensation. If you have questions, please fill out the Licensee Records and Compliance Inquiry Form or call 415-538-2120.
No. County employees are not exempt. Employees of California Superior Courts are exempt from MCLE requirements.
You may apply the MCLE credit from courses approved by many states and a few overseas jurisdictions if you were physically outside California when you completed them. This is by rule, so no special forms or requests are needed. Check the approved jurisdictions list on the State Bar website.
If you do not maintain a trust account, a trust account is not maintained on your behalf, and you do not need a trust account because you are not 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 can answer “no” to the Screening Question: “At any point during the reporting period of January 1, 2025–December 31, 2025, or, if you are a new licensee who must pay your initial license fees pursuant to rule 2.12 of the Rules of the State Bar, from your date of admission through the following December 31, 2025, or the due date for payment of fees, whichever is earlier, were you responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions governing the safekeeping of funds of clients and other persons under rule 1.15 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct?” After submitting that response and declaring the information is true, your compliance with CTAPP will be deemed complete.
If your practice does not require a client trust account, you do not need to open one to report it to the State Bar as part of the CTAPP requirements. If you have questions about using trust accounts, including whether you are responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15 or whether you need a trust account, please contact the State Bar’s Ethics Hotline research service at 800-238-4427 (toll-free in California). The Ethics Hotline might be able to provide helpful citations and resource references. The Ethics Hotline cannot provide legal advice, nor tell you how to comply with any of the CTAPP requirements, including the self-assessment.
A lawyer who has no responsibility to comply with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15 and a lawyer who is responsible for complying only with 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, can comply with their reporting requirements by answering “no” to the screening question as to whether they were responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions governing the safekeeping of funds of clients and other persons under rule 1.15 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct and thereafter submitting their declaration. Lawyers who have no such responsibilities include:
Please check column 2 (Application Type) of the Step 2 account grid. If the account was registered through Agency Billing you can only update the Account Connection to “Disassociated/Added in Error.” To do so, please see FAQ 3.3.4. For all other changes, including adding a balance, firm name changes, etc., please contact your firm administrator.
If your account was previously registered as a “Ind. CTA or Non-CA IOLTA” account type, you will be required to update your account type to “IOLTA,” “non-CA IOLTA,” or “non-IOLTA.”
If you were not previously required to provide an open date, you will be required to provide the open date for each of your registered accounts.
If the account was registered through My State Bar Profile, you can edit some details of an existing account. To do so, you should:
Under Business and Professions Code section 6212, attorneys that established an IOLTA account pursuant to subdivision (a) of Business and Professions Code section 6211, may hold IOLTA accounts only at eligible financial institutions. Rule 1.15(a) of the California Rules of Professional Conduct generally requires that trust accounts for California clients be maintained in California. You are permitted to hold client funds in an IOLTA account outside California if your client is from somewhere other than California or if your California client has a substantial relationship with the other jurisdiction and has provided written consent. If your practice meets those criteria and you do not have a California IOLTA, you may select “I do not have a California IOLTA” as your response.
For purposes of this reporting requirement, board service for a legal aid nonprofit would qualify because all board work with such an organization is enabling the delivery of legal services to the indigent (since these organizations primarily serve indigent California residents). Please note that some legal aid providers and other nonprofits for which attorneys provide pro bono legal services may also ask attorneys to report pro bono hours, but the definition for pro bono legal services may vary for their purposes. Attorneys should confirm definitions with the entity before reporting pro bono hours to the entity.
Your device may be referring to an earlier memory cache (version) of the course and may not be refreshing correctly. Try carrying out each of these options until you resolve the issue:
The plan allows attorneys to spread their total fee into smaller, manageable payments while ensuring compliance with their financial obligations.
Missed payments should be made up immediately. Failure to do so may result in your removal from the payment plan, and your outstanding balance becoming immediately due.
No. However, you may submit Certificates of Admission or Certificates of Good Standing for each court to which you are admitted in lieu of listing each court and your standing in that court.
Effective August 1, 2023, lawyers must comply with Rule of Professional Conduct 8.3, which requires a lawyer to report certain misconduct by another lawyer. The Rule 8.3 Reporting Requirements page provides more information about this reporting obligation.
California criminal prosecutors are required to notify the State Bar when they file criminal charges (felony or misdemeanor) against an attorney.[7]
California courts are required to notify the State Bar when an attorney is convicted of any crime;[8] when an attorney has been found in contempt;[9] when an attorney has been sanctioned $1,000 or more (except for discovery sanctions);[10] when an attorney has been found in violation of certain statutes;[11] or when a civil judgment has been entered against an attorney for fraud, misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, or gross negligence committed in a professional capacity.[12]
Insurance companies are required to notify the State Bar upon receipt of a claim or action against an attorney for fraud, misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, or gross negligence committed in a professional capacity.[13]
The insurance commissioner reports workers’ compensation fraud to the State Bar.[14]
Banks submit reports to the State Bar when an attorney trust account is overdrawn.[15]
The State Bar is statutorily authorized to receive Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI)[16] from the California Department of Justice for purposes of admission, discipline, and regulation of attorneys.[17]
The State Bar is statutorily authorized to receive subsequent arrest notification services[18] for attorneys.[19]
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