Prosecutors seek to reform state bar discipline process

Santa Clara County prosecutors are supporting a legislative reform that would restrict the California State Bar's ability to impose discipline. The proposed reform follows the bar's recommendation that prosecutor Ben Field be suspended from the practice of law for three years. Some of the charges against Field were 10 years old. The discipline of Field, and charges recently brought against other prosecutors, apparently were prompted by a series of investigative reports by the San Jose Mercury News. (Legal ethics wonks are aware of the long-running debate about whether state bars fail to adequately discipline prosecutors and, if so, why.)