A Mackinac Center Legal Foundation lawsuit filed on behalf of attorney Lucille Taylor has received wide media attention.

Approximately 40,000 lawyers are forced by law to pay $315 every year to the State Bar of Michigan. The bar association uses the money, in part, to take stances on controversial political issues, such as the regulation of money in politics, the death penalty, spending on judicial campaigns, proposed criminal justice laws and more.

As former Federal Elections Commission Chairman and Mackinac Center Scholar Bradley Smith has written, only lawyers are forced to join occupational associations in order to work:

Doctors are not required to join the medical society, nor dentists the dental association. Certified public accountants, veterinarians, and architects are free to join, or refrain from joining, their respective professional organizations. The same is true with other licensed professions and occupations.

Taylor said she doesn’t necessarily disagree with all the positions the State Bar takes, but says lawyers should still have the option to decide whether to fund them. “When the state bar speaks, it sort of speaks the position of all lawyers," she told the Detroit Free Press. "And lawyers by their nature are disputatious, and they hold very different points of view ... and here we are, all forced into this organization."

The legal challenge was covered by the Associated Press, Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, MIRS News, Gongwer, Iosco County News-Herald and more. To learn more about the lawsuit, see www.mackinac.org/Lucille.

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