[WSBAPT] Keller Deduction Miscalculation

[John McCrady]

Thank you for this; I appreciate it.

John McCrady
Counsel
Puget Sound Title Company
5350 Orchard Street West
University Place WA 98467
253-476-5721
j.mccrady at pstitle.com

From: wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com [mailto:wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com] On Behalf Of Christina Faucett
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2017 10:55 AM
To: wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com
Subject: [WSBAPT] Keller Deduction Miscalculation


Fellow WSBA Members,

As you know, each year the WSBA is required to permit its member to take a Keller deduction for the amount of your bar dues that the Bar Association estimates it spent on “political or ideological activities that are not reasonably related to the regulation of the legal profession or improving the quality of legal services.”

As you may have noticed, in recent years (and especially in 2017) the WSBA has increasingly engaged in partisan political activity that has nothing to do with regulating the practice of law. However, the amount of the Keller deduction as a proportion of our bar dues has changed very little in recent years. For this reason, I decided to pay attention to how the Keller deduction was calculated this year. What I found was disappointing, but sadly not surprising: The Keller deduction should be four times larger than the WSBA calculated. I know the dollar amount doesn’t seem like much given the increasing amount of your bar dues, but the First Amendment implications of this are huge. The Constitution is clear: you cannot be compelled to pay for political and ideological speech with which you disagree. For this reason alone, I have sent a formal request for arbitration of the amount of the Keller deduction to the WSBA.

Unfortunately, based on my reading of the rules for challenging the Keller deduction, I cannot challenge the deduction on behalf of all WSBA members. If you want your Keller deduction to be corrected, you must submit your own request for arbitration to the WSBA in writing no later than February 1, 2018.

Per information on the WSBA website: “Delivery may be made in person or by first-class mail, and mailed demands will be deemed delivered upon mailing. Demands shall include the name and address of the member or members demanding arbitration, a brief statement of the claim or objection, and the signature of each objecting member.” (https://www.wsba.org/docs/default-source/licensing/keller-deduction-overview.pdf?sfvrsn=9f3538f1_4 ) I assume this means you cannot submit your demand via email.

Below I have included the text of the demand letter I sent to the WSBA, which you may copy and sign and send to the WSBA. Feel free to edit or change it however you see fit before you send it. If you think there is something I have missed, please let me know. I expect that the WSBA will consolidate these requests for arbitration, and I am fully prepared to defend all of the claims made in my letter on behalf of everyone who sends in a similar demand.

Please feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might be interested in having this information or post it on other listserves. I am not a member of any other listserves and do not have the capacity to send this to all WSBA members, but I would like the information to get out to as many people as possible so they can have the opportunity to be informed about what the WSBA has been up to.

What if I already paid my dues for 2018? My understanding is that you can still request arbitration and a refund for the proper amount of the Keller deduction once it has been determined.

Sample Demand Letter:

Washington State Bar Association

1325 Fourth Ave.

Suite 600

Seattle, WA 98101-2539



RE: Request for Arbitration Regarding the Keller deduction

To Whom It May Concern,

This is a formal demand for arbitration regarding the amount of the Keller deduction for the 2018 year. I allege that the Keller deduction was calculated improperly in the following manner:

•         Political and ideological activities not related to direct and indirect lobbying for legislation were not included in the calculation of the Keller deduction. These activities include:

o   The cost of the Decoding the Law series, as this series was entirely one-sided political argumentation in opposition to the death penalty, Initiative 1552, President’s Trump’s travel bans, and espousing political positions on race and police activity. No individuals representing the other side of these extremely controversial political ideologies were given the opportunity to present at any of the Decoding the Law presentations, and numerous statements of political opinion were made by the presenters;

o   A large portion of the expenses of the Access to Justice Board, which engages in substantial political activity, including:

•  The August 21, 2017 letter to Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst  regarding Proposed ER 413 - Admissibility of Immigration Status (see September BOG meeting materials pg. 392-93)

•  Comments before the FCC regarding Net Neutrality (see September BOG meeting materials pg. 401-410)

•  The cost of the Access to Justice State Plan for the Coordinated Delivery of Civil Legal Aid to Low Income People, as it is replete with social and political opinion statements, including numerous references to “systemic racism” and “racial bias that has been built into our societal fabric.” (see March BOG meeting pubic materials pg. 129-147)

o   The expense of the publication of NW Lawyer magazine was not included in the calculation of the Keller deduction. NW Lawyer magazine has, in 2017 in particular, become an outlet for political opinion pieces: publishing only articles from one political perspective, while denying publication of articles from the other perspective. Of the 60 substantive articles (not part of a standard section such as the President’s corner or Bar Notes) written for NW Lawyer this year, 27.42% were political in nature. Of these, 100% were written from a liberal/Democrat/left-leaning perspective. Not a single article published in NW Lawyer magazine in 2017 was from a conservative/Republican/right-leaning perspective. In fact, I am at a loss to think of a single article published in NW Lawyer since I became a member in 2013 that was from a conservative perspective. I find it impossible to believe that this is simply the result of a lack of submissions from conservative writers. The Letters to the Editor section contains many such perspectives. Because of the discriminatory manner in which articles are selected for publication in NW Lawyer magazine, the net cost of publication of the magazine must be considered political and ideological activity on the part of the WSBA. At the very least, the net cost of publishing the 27.42% of articles which were political in nature must be non-chargeable;

•         The amount of general staff time spent on legislative or political matters was multiplied by an improper percentage: 58.13% instead of 93.25%, which was the percentage of actual time spent lobbying for or against legislation which was non-chargeable. The 58.13% figure was obtained by dividing the number of staff hours actually spent working on legislative activities by the number budgeted, and then multiplying that by 93.25% (the percentage of non-chargeable legislative activity). Because only about two-thirds of the legislative budget was actually spent this year, the percentage came out to 58.13%. However, it is improper to multiply the amount of money actually spent on general staff time, BOG meeting time, and conference calls by a number that was obtained by counting unspent hours in the legislative budget. The proper calculation should have been multiplying the value of general staff time actually spent by the percentage of non-chargeable activities: 93.25%, resulting in a deduction of $.13 for this portion of the Keller deduction, not $.08.

•         The portion of legislative and general staff time spent on preparing opposition to the proposed restructuring of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which was counted as chargeable time should be counted as non-chargeable time.



Based on the above, I estimate that the Keller deduction was miscalculated by approximately $10.99, pending receipt of further information necessary to make an accurate calculation.

Per the rules set forth for arbitration, I am requesting information on the following information:

•         A detailed breakdown of the exact manner in which the $5,456.30 of general staff time, (including salaries, benefits, and overhead), BOG meeting time (overhead), and conference calls spent on meetings where legislative or political matters were discussed was calculated;

•         The total cost of the Decoding the Law Series, including the amount of staff salaries which went into running and advertising this series, and whether this was or was not included in the calculation of the Keller deduction;

•         The total amount of time spent by the Access to Justice Board on political topics, including all of the above-mentioned items and whether time spent on any of the above was already included in the calculation of the Keller deduction.

•         A list of the title and topic of every article submitted to NW Lawyer Magazine which was not accepted for publication, as well as a list of any articles which were personally solicited by members of WSBA staff or board members from any individual on a particular topic which were published (in order to determine whether the selection of articles for publication was made in a socially or politically discriminatory way).

I look forward to receiving the WSBA’s prompt response to this matter.



Sincerely,





[Name]

[Bar number]

[Contact information]



Sincerely,

Christina Faucett
Attorney at Law
faucettlegal.com<http://faucettlegal.com>
(206) 650-2420

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