Type Legal Society Location United States | Headquarters Salt Lake City, UT | |
Membership 7,277 in 2012 (725 out of state) Website | ||
The Utah State Bar is the integrated (mandatory) bar association of the U.S. state of Utah.
Contents
History
Starting around 1851, lawyers in the Territory of Utah would petition the Supreme Court for admission and, once admitted, were members of the bar of all the courts in the territory; essentially, there was a Bar of the Territory of Utah, but no bar association until 1884. Informal associations of Utah lawyers began no later than the early 1900s. In 1931 the Utah legislature passed a law designating the Utah State Bar to manage and regulate the legal profession in the state. In 1985 the Utah State Constitution was amended to clarify that regulation of the legal professional was under the judicial branch through the Utah Supreme Court, under which the Bar continued its regulatory and public interest services.
Structure
The 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.
The Bar enforces the rule that Utah lawyers must complete 24 credits of Continuing Legal Education every two years.
The Utah State Bar publishes the bi-monthly Utah Bar Journal.
The Utah State Bar offices are located in the Utah Law & Justice Center located at 645 South 200 East, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. It was built in 1988 to provide offices for Bar operations and meeting spaces for law related programs. The Utah Law & Justice Center provides office space for law related organizations that include Attorney's Title Guaranty Fund, Inc., Utah Law Related Education Projects, Utah Bar Foundation, Utah State Board of Continuing Education, Utah Association for Justice, and Utah Dispute Resolution.