Nonprofit groups celebrated Thursday after the California Supreme Court unanimously affirmed their right to practice law without registering with the State Bar.
But the party mood was tempered slightly by the high court's decision to ask the State Bar to conduct a thorough study and recommend whether regulation really is warranted.
"It is incumbent upon the State Bar," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote, "to study whether [such] groups ... actually imperil client interests despite the absence of a profit motive, and to consider how such a danger, if it exists, may be mitigated by regulations consistent with First Amendment principles."
Brad Seligman, executive director of The Impact Fund in Berkeley and one of two attorneys who argued the nonprofits' point of view during oral arguments, saw the bright side, saying the decision "dispels a cloud" that had hovered over the groups' legal work and predicting that the State Bar will propose no changes.
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