I keep pondering the meaning of the court’s statement in Wash. State Bar Ass’n v. State, 125 Wn.2d 901, 907 – 08, 890 P.2d 1047 (1995):
[t]his court’s control over Bar Association functions is not limited to admissions and discipline of lawyers. The control extends to ancillary administrative functions as well.
One must wonder whether Supreme Court in the exercise of the bar’s function of disciplining members of the bar fraternity was an extension of the Bar Association. The court says it is not and that the court actually regulates the Bar in the exercise of the function.
Really it delegates the function to the Bar and acts as the final decision maker regarding certain bar actions leaving the rest up to the bar.
But, again, in Wash. State Bar Ass’n v. State, the court says its “control over Bar Association functions is not limited to admissions and discipline of lawyers. The control extends to ancillary administrative functions as well.”
What this means is that the court is the Bar Association and that all actions of the Bar Association are under the control of the court and that the court has delegated its function to the Bar Association. That is, the court is in control of the trade association aspects of the Bar Association and that it has delegated the day to day operation of those functions and the disciplinary function to the bar.
At least, that is a point of view based upon this author’s reading and understanding of the evidence, to wit, Wash. State Bar Ass’n v. State and its predecessors.
(By the way, it does not appear that Wash. State Bar Ass’n v. State has been overruled or distinguished in any substantive manner as to the issue in question – the court’s control of the “ancillary administrative functions [of the bar]” as well as the “disciplinary function of the bar association.”)
The court controls the Bar Association, that is the association of the individual members of the bar. Interesting, . . . .
