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GAZETTE
APRIL 1980
Certification of Legal Specialists
in the State of California
By JAMES B. CORISON
Riverside, California (Chairman California Board of Legal Specialization)*
During the last few years, a new movement within the
legal profession has come into being. Although the move-
ment is growing throughout the United States, its roots
are in California. The following is a short history of its
development in the Golden State.
In 1966 the Board of Governors of the State Bar of
California took its first step in the implementation of an
innovative programme for the formal certification of legal
specialists. The programme was designed to meet needs of
the public and of the profession arising from the recog-
nised increase in specialised law practice over the past few
decades which resulted from ever broadening demands
upon lawyers. Countless governmental agencies with their
regulations, more complex tax laws, a changing attitude
within society concerning social and economic rights,
laws for the protection of the environment and for the
conservation of resources all have contributed to the
"specialised lawyer".
Initially, a Special Committee was created to conduct a
thorough study of specialisation and to prepare, if found
to be necessary and practicable, an experimental
programme under which members of the bar might seek
to become certified specialists. During the three years of
its existence, the Committee collected information on the
subject of specialisation, conducted panel discussions at
association meetings and held informal all-day hearings to
learn the views of local bar associations, deans of law
schools, members of the Conference of Barristers and
other interested persons. In addition, the Committee
devoted considerable time and effort to the preparation of
a survey of 2,196 members of the California Bar, selected
at random, to ascertain the extent and nature of existing
de facto
specialisation and the desirable characteristics of
a certification programme.
The survey was conducted in early 1968 and revealed
that two out of three attorneys concentrate their practice
in one field or a related few fields of law, that concen-
tration increases with years of practice, and that
attorneys who concentrate have higher incomes. The
survey further showed that 72% of the bar would prefer
to concentrate its practice in the future. Large majorities
anticipated that the public and profession would benefit
from certification of specialists and that certification
would generally improve professional competence.
After an analysis of the information received and an
interpretation of the results obtained from the survey, the
committee recommended that certification of legal
specialists be tried on an experimental basis in three
diverse fields, Criminal Law, Taxation, and Worker's
Compensation (recovery for industrial injury). The three
fields were especially chosen to test the ability of the
organised bar: (1) to create meaningful standards for
certification; (2) to set up reasonable testing procedures
for practitioners who presumably are already above
average in knowledge and expertise; (3) to provide
adequate continuing legal education for the specialist
when certified; and (4) to administer such a programme
fairly, objectively and without cost to the rank and file
lawyer not affiliated with the specialisation programme.
The work product of the now disbanded Special
Committee was the California Pilot Programme in Legal
Specialisation, approved by the Board of Governors in
1970 and adopted by the Supreme Court of the State of
California in 1971. It rested upon four basic concepts;
experience as a lawyer, substantial involvement in the
speciality field, special educational experience and
adequate testing to insure quality performance. Several
other characteristics of the plan are as follows:
(1) Participation is voluntary.
(2) The certified specialist is not to take advantage of
his position to enlarge the scope of his representation of a
referred client.
(3) The existence of certified specialists in a field of law
does not preclude the non-certified lawyer from prac-
tising in the field. Conversely, the certified specialist is not
precluded from practising in other fields of law.
(4) A lawyer may be certified in more than one field of
law if he meets the established standards.
(5) The responsibilities and privileges of the certified
specialist are personal in nature and may not be attri-
buted to or fulfilled by a law firm.
(6) A certified specialist is authorised to communicate
the fact of his certification to other lawyers and to the
public.
(7) Certified specialists must demonstrate continued
proficiency in the field by qualifying for recertification
every five years.
The Pilot Programme created what was initially a nine-
member, now a thirteen-member, Board of Legal Special-
isation (the "Board") and nine-member Advisory
Commissions for each field to implement the plan. The
Board now consists of six lawyers-at-large, the dean of an
accredited law school (currently the University of
Southern California), a representative of Continuing
Education of the Bar (a Berkeley based continuing legal
educational institution sponsored by the State Bar of Cali-
fornia and the University of California), the Chairman of
the Committee on Maintenance of Professional Compe-
tence of the State Bar and four Chairmen of Advisory
Commissions (a new commission for Family Law has
recently been added). The Advisory Commissions consist
of acknowledged experts in each field. Only one of the
members-at-large of the Board is a certified specialist. All
members of the Advisory Commissions are certified
except for the members of the newly established commis-
sion for Family Law.
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