Age exemptions wither away — but at least there’s FREE CLE.

In April, the Nevada State Bar’s Board of Governors blast emailed members a third-party confidential survey asking for their “opinion on the CLE and annual license fee exemptions currently offered to members older than 70.” The survey is apparently driven by proponents who want to eliminate that age exemption. Others want it left in place. Will the survey decide the matter? I rather doubt it. In any case, the results are supposed to be published online and/or in the Nevada Bar’s magazine.

Currently, there are 412 Nevada lawyers age 70 or older actively practicing. But those silver legal eagles better start worrying. Once the age exemption is eliminated, those 412 lawyers, representing less than 5% of Nevada’s 8,818 active lawyers, will each sustain about $1,000 in new higher annual costs to practice.

Base annual dues in Nevada are presently $450. In addition, there’s a separate yearly $40 paid to the Nevada CLE Board. This amounts to $490 in total mandatory annual fees. And with the average cost of an hour’s worth of Bar CLE at about $45 multiplied by a mandated 12 annual CLE hours — tack on another $540 to the annual tariff. Wine may improve with age — but not it seems the bottom line for Nevada’s older lawyers.

As far as the Bar’s concerned, however, the news would be positive. Assuming the 412 septuagenarian lawyers satisfy their CLE requirements through the Bar, the projected fiscal impact for the Nevada Bar will to the sunny side of potentially over $400,000 in higher annual revenues based on the infusion of new dues-payers and CLE potentially totaling $1030 in fees X 412 active senior Nevada attorneys.

Right now, millenials outnumber the 75.4 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. But the bad news for those 18 to 34 year olds is that many Boomers aren’t retiring. So as Baby Boomers, including lawyers, continue working past retirement age, it’s not surprising that mandatory bars are trending toward revoking senior lawyer age exemptions. After all, the bureaucratic maw must be fed. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘the bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.’

Some mandatory bars like the State Bar of Arizona eliminated their age exemptions years ago. As a matter of fact, in the Grand Canyon state, aging lawyers who take retirement status still pay bar dues. The only way to stop paying is to resign in good standing or to rest in peace beneath the ground. And in Texas, on April 28, 2015, the Texas Supreme Court amended its Bar Rules to eliminate its longstanding MCLE exemption for so-called emeritus attorneys, those aged 70-years and up.

Understandably, it’s a bit unseemly to ascribe money grasping reasons to these moves. So look instead for overused policy dodges dressed up in public protection apparel to justify eliminating the age exemptions. Doddering dinosaur lawyers who fail to keep abreast of the law may pose risks to consumers is how the argument goes. But unfortunately for proponents, there’s never been proof or any empirical evidence that continuing legal education makes lawyers of any age more competent, professional or ethical.

It seems “Wisdom doesn’t automatically come with old age,” according to the late Abigail Van Buren. “Nothing does – except wrinkles. It’s true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.”

Finally, paraphrasing Francis Bacon, “Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust,” — and for mandatory state bars, old lawyers to tax.

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