In keeping with the Arizona Supreme Court’s “Good to Great” theme, Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch has issued an administrative order that lays out a plan for continued improvement to Arizona’s attorney regulation system. The order establishes an Attorney Discipline Task Force, which will file a petition by December 2009 with recommended changes. The Chief Justice directs the task force to incorporate best practices from the Colorado attorney discipline system.

The changes will focus on:

• Delivering quicker resolution and more responsiveness to lawyers and the public
• Decreasing time and costs to process cases
• Providing more public input earlier in the process
• Continuing a fair and impartial system and maintaining due process

The Chief Justice calls for the creation of a fulltime presiding disciplinary judge and also asks that a disciplinary panel be involved in determining probable cause. The details of these changes and others will be worked out over the next few months.

Working with the task force and the Court, the State Bar will seek to present a variety of opportunities for members to learn more about the proposed changes and give input. To begin, we have established a special email box to collect comments and feedback, LRTF@azbar.org.

We will continue to update this page as new information comes available.