CPIL Submits Letter in Support (if amended) of AB 3249 (Assembly Committee on Judiciary) to Committee

Sacramento (June 20, 2018) – The University of San Diego School of Law's Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of AB 3249 (Assembly Committee on Judiciary), if amended. 

In the letter, CPIL fully supports the bill’s clarification that the Bar’s public protection mandate includes support for greater access to, and inclusion in, the legal system, as well as its express legislative findings calling for the Bar to maintain its commitment to policies to enhance access, fairness, and diversity in the legal profession and the elimination of bias in the practice of law.

CPIL also supports the bill’s commitment to access to justice, particularly its provision permitting attorneys to receive mandatory continuing legal education credit for pro bono legal service, which it believes is a step in the right direction to decrease the prevalent justice gap.

CPIL emphasizes in the letter that it strongly believes that the Bar must adequately be funded and supports analyzing whether licensing fees should be increased in coming years.  However, CPIL is concerned that the bill proposes to amend section 6140.0 of the Business and Professions Code to divert mandatory attorney licensing fees to a private nonprofit.  According to the letter, CPIL does not believe this is appropriate use of licensing fees and urges the committee to amend the bill to remove that section.

To read the letter in support in its entirety please visit CPIL’s webpage.

About Center for Public Interest Law

Founded in 1980, the University of San Diego School of Law’s Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) serves as an academic center of research and advocacy in regulatory and public interest law. CPIL focuses its efforts on the study of an extremely powerful, yet often overlooked, level of government: state regulatory agencies. Under the supervision of experienced public interest attorneys and advocates, CPIL law student interns study California agencies that regulate business, professions, and trades.

CPIL publishes the California Regulatory Law Reporter, a unique legal journal that covers the activities and decisions of over 12 major California regulatory agencies.

In addition to its academic program, CPIL has an advocacy component. Center faculty, professional staff, and interns represent the interests of the unorganized and underrepresented in California’s legislature, courts, and regulatory agencies. CPIL attempts to make the regulatory functions of California government more efficient and visible by serving as a public monitor of state regulatory activity. The Center has been particularly active in reforming the state’s professional discipline systems for attorneys and physicians, and in advocating public interest reforms to the state’s open meetings and public records statutes.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

The University of San Diego (USD) School of Law is recognized for the excellence of its faculty, depth of its curriculum, and strength of its clinical programs. Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 35th nationally and 6th on the West Coast among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 24th nationally and 6th on the West Coast in all-time faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, nonprofit, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.