Attorney general wants state to pay dues for lawyers

Jennifer Coleman

Monday, March 8, 1999 | 10:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Nevada's attorney general, facing a 27 percent turnover in staff, asked lawmakers Monday to pay the state bar association fees of her deputies and other public lawyers.

But Senate Finance Committee members weren't feeling generous enough to endorse SB119, which would pay the $64,400 a-year total cost of annual membership dues for 184 state and local government attorneys, including 130 in the attorney general's office.

Deputy Attorney General Anne Cathcart said many deputies in her office leave for better paying jobs, and taking care of the $350 dues payment might help to keep some on staff.

"The problem for us is we want to keep good people. A 27 percent turnover rate isn't good. We're nowhere near competitive in salaries," she said.

Senate Finance Chairman Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said lawmakers hadn't funded bar dues in the past because "professional employees had the responsibility to keep themselves eligible for work.

"Where do you draw the line? Engineers, architects, doctors - everyone now has an organization they need to belong to," Raggio said.

Sen. Bernice Mathews, D-Sparks, said she agreed: "I'm a nurse and I have to pay my own dues, as do other nurses and they make a whole lot less."

But Cathcart said anything the state can offer prospective and current employees would help keep lawyers from going to other public agencies.

Raggio suggested the real problem is a disparity in salaries for the attorney general's staff compared with private lawyers.

Cathcart said the turnover rate affects more than retraining costs.

"There's the loss of institutional memory and understanding of the governmental process. Things just go better when you have a staff who understands how government works," she said.

Cathcart gave legislators an informal survey of other public agencies that pay for bar dues, including the district attorneys offices in Washoe and Clark counties and the cities of Reno and Las Vegas. She added that 80 percent of private firms pay bar dues for lawyers.

Robert Hadfield, representing the Nevada Association of Counties, asked that counties be taken out of the bill. Many county agencies already offer bar dues to attorneys, he said.

"We'd like to continue to do what we do, as a matter of negotiation," he said.