Utah State Bar

History

Starting around 1851, lawyers in the Territory of Utah would petition the Supreme Court for permission to practice law in Utah, and once approved, they became members of the bar of all the courts in the territory. Historically, admission would come after either an examination by a committee appointed by the Supreme Court, or after an examination conducted by the local district court judges for the territory. Similarly, removal of attorneys for misconduct relied on the individual determination of the local court. In essence, while applicants had to be admitted to practice, no formal bar association existed and admissions occurred based on the determination of local judges or the Supreme Court. Informal associations of Utah lawyers began to form no later than the early 20th century, including a coordinated effort in 1894.

In 1931 the Utah legislature passed a law designating the private corporation known as "Utah State Bar" to self-regulate the activities of dues-paying legal licensees in the State of Utah.

Structure

Utah State Bar is managed by a Board of Commissioners including thirteen voting members, eleven elected lawyers and two non-lawyers appointed by the Court. The Commission also includes non-voting ex officio members: the deans of the University of Utah Law School and Brigham Young University Law School, the Bar's delegate to the American Bar Association, the Utah American Bar Association members' delegate to the ABA, the president of the Young Lawyers Division, and representatives from the Women Lawyers of Utah, the Utah Minority Bar Association, the Bar's representative to the Utah Judicial Council, and the Past President of the Bar.

Utah State Bar maintains a requirement that Utah legal licensees must complete 24 credits of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) every two years.

Publications

Utah State Bar publishes the bi-monthly Utah Bar Journal.

Pornographic Email Incident

Just after 3:00 pm on Monday March 5, 2018 a NSFW email containing a large pornographic image resembling the bare breasts of a female was sent from Utah State Bar to every dues-paying member of Utah State Bar. This included over 500 dues-paying members outside of Utah. The pornographic image was opened by at least one dues-paying member who claimed to be on the house floor of the Utah State Capital and that an intern also saw the pornographic image.

References

References

1. "annual-reports". Utah State Bar.
2. "Meet the Bar Commissioners – Utah State Bar". Utah State Bar.
3. "Utah State Bar | Serving The Public and Legal Professionals".
4. "Code of Civil Procedure_page 215 {{!}} Utah State Constitution and Historical Statutes".
5. "Code of Civil Procedure_page 217 {{!}} Utah State Constitution and Historical Statutes".
6. "About – Utah State Bar".
7. "95th Anniversary – Utah State Bar".
8. (9 March 2018). "Utah Bar Commission cites human error for email containing nude photo".
9. (March 6, 2018). "Utah State Bar sends photo of topless woman to every lawyer in the state".
10. Romero, McKenzie. (March 5, 2018). "Utah State Bar investigating after topless photo is emailed to members".
11. Jackson, Abby. "Every lawyer in the state of Utah was emailed an image of a topless woman — and the bar association has no idea how it happened".