## Facts

- California required attorneys to join and pay dues to the State Bar as a condition of practicing law.
- The State Bar performed core regulatory functions, including developing professional conduct rules and disciplining attorneys.
- The Bar also used mandatory dues for activities with expressive content, including lobbying, filing amicus briefs, holding a Conference of Delegates to debate and approve resolutions, and conducting educational programs.
- Some members objected that the Bar used their compulsory dues to support political and ideological positions on controversial public issues with which they disagreed.
- The objecting members sought injunctive relief to stop the Bar from using mandatory dues (or the Bar’s name) to advance political and ideological causes.

## Issues

1. Whether an integrated state bar may use compulsory dues to finance political or ideological activities opposed by dissenting members.
2. What constitutional standard limits the permissible uses of compulsory bar dues consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
3. Whether objecting members are entitled to procedural protections allowing them to challenge and avoid subsidizing non-germane expenditures.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the California Supreme Court.
- The Court held that compulsory bar membership is permissible, but compelled dues may not be used to fund political or ideological activities that are not necessarily or reasonably incurred to regulate the legal profession or improve the quality of legal services.
- The Court rejected the view that the Bar’s broad statutory mandate allowed use of mandatory dues for any activity within its authority without meaningful First Amendment limits.
- The Court required the State Bar to implement procedures for members to challenge expenditures and to prevent compulsory funding of non-germane speech, consistent with constitutional safeguards used in analogous compelled-fee contexts.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings applying the germaneness standard and implementing an appropriate objection/refund mechanism.

## Legal Principles

- A state may condition the practice of law on membership in an integrated bar association.
- Compelled association and compelled financial support implicate the First Amendment, including a right not to subsidize objectionable speech.
- Mandatory bar dues may fund only activities germane to the purposes that justify compulsion: regulating the legal profession and improving the quality of legal services.
- Expenditures for political or ideological advocacy lacking a necessary or reasonable connection to those purposes may not be financed with compulsory dues from dissenting members.
- The bar must provide a fair fee-challenge procedure that reduces the risk that dissenters’ funds will be used for non-germane expressive activity while objections are resolved.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld integrated bar membership but limited mandatory dues to expenditures germane to professional regulation and improving legal services, requiring procedural protections so dissenting lawyers are not compelled to subsidize non-germane political or ideological advocacy.


Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U.S. 1 (1990)