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.