State Bar Board of Governors Gets New Faces

By Amy Yarbrough
Daily Journal Staff Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - This year's crowded State Bar Board of Governors race drew to a close Thursday, with three former county bar presidents, a longtime trial lawyer and a Sacramento-area prosecutor winning seats.

In all, 18 candidates were vying for five 3-year terms on the board, which governs and sets policy for the State Bar. The winners were: Clark Gehlbach, of Roseville, in District 1; Cheryl Hicks, of Oakland, in District 3; Lowell Carruth, of Fresno, in District 5; Patrick M. Kelly, of Los Angeles, in District 7; and Wells Lyman, of La Mesa, in District 9.

While their areas of practice vary, all five of the winners have been active in their communities.

Hicks, Kelly and Lyman are past presidents of bar associations for their respective counties. Carruth helped to found the San Joaquin Valley Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and served as its first president, while Gehlbach, a Placer County deputy district attorney, is on a local elementary school board.

According to bar officials, more than 15,000, or 16.5 percent, of State Bar members returned ballots this election. The wining candidates could not be certified until Thursday morning, when a canvassing committee weeded through 764 ballots considered questionable.

Some ballots were postmarked after the June 30 deadline - too late to count - while ballots were rejected in other cases because attorneys forgot to sign them.

One eliminated ballot was cast for convicted financier Bernie Madoff, and one was rejected because no candidate was selected with someone writing, "Where have all the good men gone?" One read in part, "I don't want any governor. I don't want any State Bar."

Hicks, a 50-year-old sole practitioner who specializes in juvenile dependency, won her race in what Robert C. Webster, chair of the canvassing board, called "a bit of a blowout." Hicks received more than 1,800 votes, while her closest competitor in the four-candidate contest, Edward M. Lai, received roughly a quarter of that amount.

Hicks said during her campaign that she intended to represent the interests of solos and small firm practitioners, a message she thinks resonated with the lawyers who voted. The fact that she was the 2007 president of the Alameda County Bar Association probably didn't hurt either.

"The majority [of California lawyers] are solo, small-firm lawyers," she said. "I do have some name recognition too, so I don't know."

Gehlbach, 43, who also ran for the board in 2003, could not be reached for comment Thursday. In his candidate statement, he listed among his goals reducing bar dues for members and improving the "responsiveness and efficiency" of the discipline system. Gehlbach ran against just one other attorney in his race.

Lyman, 66, had to beat out five other candidates. He has been president of both the Foothills and San Diego County bar associations, and is a sole practitioner who specializes in bankruptcy and family law.

Carruth, of counsel with McCormick Barstow in Fresno, touted a platform of promoting civility among lawyers during his campaign but said that as a "conservative guy," he also wants to make sure the State Bar uses money wisely.

"My goal is making sure we stay within budget," he said.

Kelly, 66, who serves as western region managing partner for Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, said he had wanted to run for Board of Governors since completing his term as president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association in 1991. Until now, work commitments made it difficult.

Another reason for running that Kelly cited was his desire to help lawyers in trying economic times.

"I felt this was an important time in the history of the legal profession, time to really pitch in."