Legislature(2001 - 2002)
02/20/2002 01:42 PM Senate JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 273-EXTEND BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF AK BAR ASSN
MS. PAT DAVIDSON, Legislative Auditor, said in accordance with
statutes Legislative Budget and Audit conducted a sunset audit of
the Board of Governors of the Alaska Bar Association (Bar). The
conclusion they reached was the Bar is functioning and is
providing qualified applicants for licensure to the State of
Alaska. They found the Bar is working generally in an efficient
and effective manner. Therefore they recommend the legislature
extend the termination date of the Bar until June 2006.
MS. DAVIDSON said they made a couple of recommendations. But she
did not think they are of import that it would affect the
extension date of the Bar at all.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said as usual her department had done an
excellent job and he thanked her and her staff for the quality of
work he had seen over the last several years.
SENATOR THERRIAULT said a concern had been expressed to him over
whether the Bar should conduct itself more like a board and
commission. He asked if that was something that she reviewed or
heard about.
MS. DAVIDSON said one of the questions that had come up was the
fact that the Bar Association does act more independently with
regard to its budget than most Executive Branch Boards and
Commissions. They did a little research on that. She said she
was not an attorney and could not succinctly put the argument.
It has to do with the Alaska Constitution providing the court
system with certain powers and duties to administer itself. This
Bar Association function comes under that. It is by court rule
that the fees are paid the way they are. So the Supreme Court is
the administering body of the Bar Association. She expected an
attorney could give them a more succinct explanation of that but
it has to do with it being wrapped up in what the Constitution
gives the Supreme Court in terms of ability and then it goes into
the court rules.
SENATOR THERRIAULT said the court system is a separate branch of
government but the legislature still budget for them. He said he
did not believe even in the budget they pass for the court system
that the Bar function is a subset in that budget. He believed it
appeared nowhere.
MS. DAVIDSON said that was true. While the court system budget
itself does go through the legislative process this one does not.
It is not included in the court system's budget. For all intents
and purposes it is off budget.
SENATOR THERRIAULT said there was some question of whether that
is what it should be.
MS. DEBORAH O'REGAN, Executive Director, Alaska Bar Association,
said it is correct that the Bar is under the judicial branch of
the government. It is correct that they do not find them in the
court system budget because the Bar Association receives no state
funding whatsoever. All the funding for the Bar Association
comes from bar member dues, admission fees, seminar fees and that
kind of thing. All the money is privately raised. They have not
received any money from the state since 1986 when the legislature
last gave them some funding for the public members on the board.
There are three public members on the board that are appointed by
the governor and the Bar Association does pay for the travel and
per diem for those public members.
SENATOR THERRIAULT said in the current statute all boards and
commissions have to be self-funding basically and they do that by
raising licensing fees. Those monies do come into the state and
they have to be appropriated back out for that function. In
addition, boards and licensing commissions have to make sure they
are not overcharging. There is a function so that if they raise
more money than it takes to perform the function then the fees go
down the next year. Part of the question he had heard was
whether that same mechanism is available to attorneys that pay
the Bar fee and if not why not.
MS. O'REGAN said the Alaska Bar Act Statute does give the board
the power and the duties to set the budget for the Bar
Association and to expend money. She thought because they are
not a state agency but rather an instrumentality of the state
they don't have the same requirements as all of the state
agencies because they are not a state agency they are an
instrumentality of the state under Alaska Statute.
MS. MAURI LONG, President, Alaska Bar Association, apologized for
her late arrival. She said she heard a good part and thought Ms.
O'Regan had answered well. She said they are not responsible for
setting themselves up but did not hear the question initially so
was not sure if there was anything she could add. She said if
they had specific questions she would be happy to answer them.
MR. STEVE CONN, Executive Director, Alaska Public Interest
Research Group (AKPIRG), said the testimony he would share with
the committee was created and is being communicated to them by a
subset of their operation, Barbara Williams, who is the President
of Alaska Injured Workers Alliance. She provides representation
of a voluntary and lay nature to injured workers engaged in
workers compensation hearings in both administrative and court
hearings. He said he would be speaking as if he were her.
MR. CONN explained these hundreds of workers, including one that
she was working with at that minute, cannot find representation
because only a handful of attorneys take workers compensation
cases. Some of these people suffer not only from the physical
disability but also from mental illness. Almost all these
injured workers confront licensed Alaskan attorneys on the other
side. She asked the Bar repeatedly to spot check hearings where
attorneys represent one side but not the other to see if ethical
violations or other unusual or overbearing conduct occurs. She
did not seek attendance at every hearing but spot-checking. The
Bar refuses saying that its budget is insufficient and people
like these should file ethics complaints. These clients cannot
tell when ethical violations occur.
He said the Legislative Audit encourages the Bar to make sure
lawyers on the referral list are qualified. But what it doesn't
mention is that many of the people who call the lawyers on the
list to whom they are referred are turned down. He said Ms.
Williams knows this is the case with workers compensation cases.
There is really only one attorney on the list. All the private
attorneys refer injured workers to her. He noted that on page 21
where they have the statistics, 320 people, and something close
to that each and every year, sought referrals for workers
compensation in 2001. He asked where they went and who helped
them. The Bar does not follow up to discover how many referrals
actually took place and what service was received. In other
words there is no quality or consumer evaluation except when it
comes in the form of an ethics complaint. The referral process
becomes mere window dressing.
MR. CONN said Ms. Williams concluded by urging them to mandate
evaluation from the consumer perspective of the referral process.
She urged them to mandate spot checks by the ethics staff of the
board the administrative and judicial hearings where licensed
attorneys come up against un-represented working people. He
urged them to seek an amendment to the composition of the Bar
Association to include not just any public member but one who is
familiar with the masses of people who must either be un-
represented or helped by a volunteer. She thanked the committee.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked Mr. Conn to carry his words back to Ms.
Williams. He said the bill is before them and it is probably
because it is a target of opportunity to criticize the Bar who at
least tries to have some level of referrals. The true villain in
this process is the legislature. The last time they did one of
those group grope operations where they brought in the employers
and all the unions, they sat down and cut a deal that basically
sold the injured workers of our state right down the river.
Sadly what happened is an attorney cannot charge an attorney's
fee to a workers compensation client. That fee can only be paid
by the Workers Compensation Board. The Workers Compensation
Board has been set up with a schedule of payments and fees and so
on that makes it almost impossible for anyone to represent folks
in the workers compensation field and make money doing it. What
they probably ought to do in the legislature is mandate that all
doctors in the state have to do appendectomies for free and we
will see how many appendectomies get done too. They won't do it
either.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said the real problem is right here in Juneau and
he would be happy to work with anyone who wishes to address that
problem and take it on. But the forces allied against them come
both from the private sector and the union sector. They felt
they made the best deal they could and they don't want to open
that can of worms without recreating that entire task force and
spending a couple of years to do it.
He said Ms. Williams is absolutely correct in her frustration.
He said as an attorney who has not done workers compensation work
for many years, he continually finds himself referring people to
Chancy Crofts office in Anchorage in the hope he may be able to
find time to help them. He is one of the only ones Chairman
Taylor knew of doing the work. It is a very frustrating thing
and he believes the Bar probably shares the level of frustration
that Ms. Williams talked about. If somebody can find a third
party negligence growing out of a workers compensation case they
will usually find somebody that will take the case in the hopes
they can then seek subrogation against the third party defendant
and actually get some level of compensation for the amount of
work they have done. In Alaska today very few people are willing
to work for nothing and that is about what it amounts to when you
take on a workers compensation case. He said he appreciated Ms.
Williams' comments very much and Mr. Conn taking the time to
bring them before the committee.
MR. CONN said he would return to the office and share Chairman
Taylor's thoughts with her.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said if Mr. Conn can find support for that effort
he pledged to him that he would help lead that attack because it
desperately needs to be done. The injured workers of Alaska are
not being taken care of. He said he guaranteed when workers go
into a court room the insurance industry has the best attorneys
money can buy standing there beating the heck out of them and
doing video tapes of them and all kinds of other things and they
have a whole cadre of doctors that in his opinion are little more
than prostitutes for the insurance industry. There is
legislation pending for that because of the notorious reputation
that many of these doctors have. They always seem to show up at
workers compensation hearings and they can never find that the
worker was ever injured and they just happen to be making
thousands and thousands of dollars every year off the insurance
industry. Chairman Taylor said it is a major problem and one he
would be happy to work on. He believed many others around the
legislature felt as he does and would be willing to work with
them on it. He told Mr. Conn if he wants to take this one on it
is an 800-pound gorilla.
SENATOR COWDERY made a motion to move SB 273 to the next
committee of referral with individual recommendations. He asked
for unanimous consent. There being no objection, the motion
carried.
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