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Marla Hacker: Marla Hacker is an Associate Professor at Oregon State University
Karen Garst: Karen Garst is Executive Director at the Oregon State Bar Association.
Introduction
The Oregon State Bar (OSB) is a public corporation, an instrumentality of the Oregon Judicial Department. The Judicial Department is one of the three branches of state government. The OSB was created, by statute, in 1935. In order to practice law in Oregon, a person must be admitted to practice by the Oregon Supreme Court and must become a member of the OSB.
As a mandatory bar, the OSB works on behalf of the Oregon Supreme Court in three regulatory areas: admission to the practice of law, disciplining lawyers who violate the Code of Professional Responsibility, and compliance with the Minimum Continuing Legal Education rules.
The OSB is governed by a 16-member Board of Governors. The statute also provides for a House of Delegates that is a representative assembly of about 200 members. The OSB also has a number of programs and services that are not regulatory in nature. These programs and services resemble those of many professional associations: member services, communications and public education; and continuing legal education (Figure 1). In addition, the bar has the traditional set of support services that are necessary to administer both its regulatory and non-regulatory programs. These include general counsel, finance and accounting, human resources, mailing and distribution, information systems, and a design center.
There are approximately 80 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees at the bar. The total budget of the bar is over US$7 million per year. Approximately half of the revenue comes from general membership fees and the other half comes from fees for services, such as continuing legal education. In addition, there are a number of other minor revenue sources.
Member services department
The member services department of the Oregon State Bar provides services to several membership entities. The manager of the department requested this study in order to improve the department's effectiveness in delivering services to bar sections. Bar sections are entities of the bar that relate to substantive areas of law such as workers' compensation law, criminal law, family law, business law, etc.
There are 37 bar sections. Members join a section by paying an annual fee, generally...