by Katherine Fox
My name is Katherine Fox and I am the Bar's general counsel. I moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan (GO BLUE!), to Utah shortly before we had the "big flood" of 1983 and there was a river running down the middle of State Street, complete with splashing trout. I was delighted to see that Utah had so much water because I had been told it was a desert! It's fairly easy to write about the evolution of my position during the Bar's 75-year history because I was the first one to fill it. Prior to my arrival in 1996, the Bar did not have a separate office of general counsel. In the past, most of my job duties were divided and performed by others such as the executive director and the senior counsel in the Office of Professional Conduct. Other tasks either were handled by outside counsel, tackled by volunteer lawyers, or simply remained undone.
In 1991, the Final Report of the Utah Supreme Court's Special Task Force on the Management and Regulation of the Practice of Law echoed a finding by the ABA's McKay Commission on Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement: disciplinary counsel should not be general counsel to a bar association. A few years later, the Report of the Committee to Review the [former] Office of Attorney Discipline in 1995 took this observation one step further. It estimated that nearly 50% of the [former] chief disciplinary counsel's time was dedicated to general counsel work. The report recommended that based on the McKay Commission's findings and the Bar's discipline office workload, that a general counsel position be created. The position originally was designated as part-time and I actually worked part-time the first week I was here. After that, more work began floating into my office and later the workload transformed itself into a small avalanche.
What kinds of things do I do at the Bar? For starters, what I DON'T do (and others I encounter always seem to assume that I actually do) is attorney discipline. The general counsel provides for the legal needs for the Bar's governing entity, the Board of Bar Commissioners, and for the Bar in general. This includes, but is not limited to, providing for the Bar's insurance needs, drafting corporate minutes, and representing the Bar before the Utah Supreme Court on matters. I respond to subpoenas, handle lawsuits or work with outside counsel, and address the legal aspects of employment-related matters.
The position also entails drafting petitions to the Supreme Court for Bar rule changes. Bar rules, which are really Supreme Court rules which apply to the Bar, include such things as the disciplinary rules, Fee Arbitration and Client Security Fund rules, admission rules and the like. For instance, in addition to more substantive rule revisions, and in conjunction with those who work at the courts, I just finished a long-term project with the Administrative Office of the Courts that re-codified all the Bar rules, making them more uniform and Utah Code format compatible. I also regularly assist with the work of the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) Committee with the committee chair and oversee the pro hac vice area.
The UPL area is often a fascinating (but frustrating) one. It never ceases to amaze me what non-lawyers believe they can do because "all the practice of law is just a bunch of memorizing stuff like the Utah Code." In talking with those individuals, I sometimes compare practicing law to practicing medicine and ask them if they think they are competent to perform surgery on their friends and family. Some of the most frustrating cases we see concern non-lawyers (usually self-styled as "financial planners") who draft and sell estate planning documents and later the "client" dies. Even when we are able to locate the person who drafted the documents, we can not resolve the problems that have been set in motion. "Notarios" are another significant issue in the UPL area. These Spanish speaking individuals take inordinate sums of money from unsuspecting victims to perform legal work (divorces and other family matters as well as immigration assistance) and often do nothing.
Finally, as appropriate and necessary, I interact with the licensing, admissions and discipline offices at the Bar and other Bar committees. My job includes lots of variety which makes it an interesting one (except for working on the re-codification project)!