The D.C. Bar is the second largest unified bar association in the United States, supporting over 82,000 members. The D.C. Bar’s core functions, supported by member dues, are the registration of lawyers, operation of a lawyer disciplinary system, maintenance of a Clients’ Security Fund, and certain other administrative operations. Many of the important educational and public service programs carried out by the Bar are made possible by voluntary contributions, user fees, and other nondues sources of income.

The Bar is governed by a Board of Governors composed of 20 lawyers selected by the active membership and three members of the public appointed by the Bar itself as nonvoting members.

History
Created by the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1972, the precipitating force for the Bar’s creation was the legal community’s desire to have a single organization that could uphold the ethical standards and rules of professional conduct.

Mission
The Bar’s mission is to provide service to the profession, the courts, and the community. The purposes of the Bar are to aid the court in carrying on and improving the administration of justice; to foster and maintain high ideals of integrity, learning, competence in public service, and high standards of conduct; to safeguard the proper professional interest of the members of the Bar; to encourage the formation and activities of volunteer bar associations; to provide a forum for and to publish information relating to the discussion of subjects pertaining to the practice of law, the science of jurisprudence and law reform, and the relations of the Bar to the public; and to carry on a continuing program of legal research and education and make reports and recommendations in the technical fields of substantive law, practice and procedure, so that the public responsibility of the legal professional is more effectively discharged.