12 Reasons the State Bar of Arizona is Nontransparent

It fails to tell its members where their money goes. The Bar does not provide members a detailed accounting of its annual expenditures, let alone a yearly income statement and balance sheet. In addition, the Bar uses unexplained indirect cost allocations to account for overhead and administrative costs. Moreover, these partial allocations appear to be based on undocumented time estimates unrelated to measurable factors. Indeed, in the Bar’s “2015 Annual Report,” the Bar states that in 2015 it generated CLE revenues of $2,059,801 against expenses of $1,925,940. This translates into a mystifying expense-to-sales ratio of approximately 94%. Were these allocated expenses reasonably linked to a level of service or benefit received? Without transparency, it’s anybody’s guess whether the Bar’s indirect cost allocations are reasonable, equitable, real and current — or whether they even represent acceptable means for apportioning costs.

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