Proposed Amendments to Rules Authorizing State Bar to Limit Payment to Credit Card and ACH (Electronic Check)

The State Bar seeks to drastically reduce the number of paper checks received to reduce costs, streamline fee payments, and minimize retroactive suspensions and administrative inactive enrollments.

Deadline: October 22, 2025, 11:59 p.m. (30 days)

Direct comments to

Comments should be submitted using the online Public Comment Form. The online form allows you to input your comments directly and can also be used to upload your comment letter and/or other attachments.

Background

In general, the Supreme Court orders nonpayment suspensions to be effective July 1. To streamline processes and avoid confusion, other administrative inactive enrollments (e.g., Client Trust Account Protection Program, Minimum Continuing Legal Education, and Attorney Record Verification noncompliance) are also generally effective on July 1. The State Bar currently allows licensees to pay annual licensing fees and other fees by mailing a check. Checks postmarked by the final license fee-payment and noncompliance fee-payment deadline, June 30, are considered timely even when received after June 30.

Discussion/proposal

To prevent untimely payments from being counted as timely and to allow Finance to process timely payments, the payment portal in My State Bar Profile (MSBP) and Agency Billing (AB) is shut down for approximately a week following the March 30 and June 30 deadlines. Shutting down the payment portal is inconvenient for licensees who are trying to make payments. Further, because State Bar staff are processing payments for a week or more after June 30, staff cannot actually change the status of licensees who are suspended until approximately July 9.

This means that if a licensee or the public were to look up a licensee between July 1 and July 9, the licensee’s status would show as “active.” However, once the suspension was applied, the effective date of that suspension would be retroactive to July 1. This causes problems for licensees who practiced law between the effective date of their suspension and the date their status was actually changed to “Not Eligible to Practice.” Having licensees retroactively suspended also causes problems for the courts in which the licensee may have practiced. Requiring licensees to make payments online via credit card or Automated Clearing House (ACH) would reduce the processing time and allow the State Bar to suspend licensees closer to the suspension effective date, reducing the number of licensees impacted by the status change.

The proposed changes, if adopted, would also reduce costs, including staff time for check processing. Many checks are mailed to our vendor bank’s lockbox services, costing the State Bar $97,000 per year. By accepting checks only from licensees without online access or an email address and who have been granted an exemption pursuant to subsection (d) of rule 9.9 of the California Rules of Court, the State Bar could reduce lockbox costs to approximately $15,000, saving over $80,000 annually. The State Bar anticipates this change would also lead to additional cost savings related to staffing, as broken out in the fiscal/personnel impact section.

Licensees and firms are assessed a processing fee for credit card payments, but ACH payments remain a fee-free option.

Any fiscal/personnel impact

Limiting the ability to make payments with paper checks to attorneys who have been granted an exemption pursuant to subsection (d) of rule 9.9 of the California Rules of Court is projected to save approximately $90,000 annually, based on the following cost reductions:

  • Lockbox services: Reduced from $97,000 to $15,000 per year
  • Overtime costs: Reduced from $13,000 to $8,000 per billing cycle
  • Temporary staffing: Reduced from $20,000 to $17,000 per billing cycle
     

Background material

  • Board of the Trustees Meeting September 19, 2025: Agenda Item 6.13, Proposed New State Bar Rule 1.30 and Proposed Amendments to State Bar Rule 2.33 Relating to Acceptable Methods of Payment: Request to Circulate for Public Comment

Source

Board of Trustees

Deadline

October 22, 2025, 11:59 p.m

Direct comments to

Comments should be submitted using the online Public Comment Form. The online form allows you to input your comments directly.