A bitter dispute over annulled election results for the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s governing body has revealed a trade group mired in financial losses with membership in sharp decline.
The controversial move last month to rescind the nominations of a slate of officials, who ran unopposed, set off a firestorm of criticism and spawned a lawsuit attempting to overturn the decision, which was made by just 12 members of the bar’s 28-member board.
“I was astounded at such a drastic and unauthorized remedy,” said William Winslow, one of the 16 board members who were barred from voting on the proposal to overturn the nominations.
The board has stated the initial results were thrown out because of a leak to the Metropolitan News-Enterprise about the nomination process.
Because the candidates ran unopposed, bar members did not actually cast votes in the election, according to the organization’s rules. Winslow is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the bar, filed May 15 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
He and others have said they are trying to pull the organization out of a financial freefall. The trade group lost some $6.8 million over the past decade, managing to run a balanced budget just twice since 2006, according to tax returns and internal reports obtained by the Business Journal.
Twelve of the bar’s leadership positions were to be filled through the now-annulled nomination process. Those nominations included a number of candidates who were part of the effort to institute reform, according to Winslow and others. The group was headlined by Brian Kabateck of downtown’s Kabateck Brown Kellner, who would have become president-elect if the nominations were not overturned.
“Wild and bizarre beyond explanation,” Kabateck said of the unfolding events, describing the board’s reasoning for tossing out the results as troubling.
“People are forced to sign confidentiality agreements or they can’t participate in meetings,” he said. “They can’t disclose a budget, they can’t disclose anything – it’s a damned nonprofit trade organization in Los Angeles that’s supposed to serve its members and it’s just not doing that.”
A spokesman for the bar sent a statement from Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the association’s treasurer, who oversaw the partial board’s vote to annul the first round of nominations.
“Ultimately, ensuring that LACBA’s members can have confidence in the integrity and reliability of our nomination and election process is the highest priority,” said Crabtree-Ireland, who also is the chief operating officer and general counsel of SAG-Aftra. “In this case, that requires the process to be redone. I’m confident that this rened process will ensure next year’s officers and trustees can take office without any cloud on the legitimacy of their election.”
A second nomination committee returned the same slate of nominees last week, though the nominations can still be contested.
