Last May, the KCBA Board of Trustees convened a Bar Bulletin Task Force to recommend editorial guidelines and best practices for this publication. The Task Force has reviewed past issues, studied editorial policies and procedures from other bar associations, and interviewed persons who have helped produce the Bulletin. Ultimately, it provided the KCBA Board of Trustees with a report and recommendations that I will attempt to summarize here. While I was the chair of the Task Force, please note that this is my summary and may not perfectly represent the views of the Task Force as a whole.
After this article, you will find the Editorial Guidelines that the Board instituted on April 16, 2025.
The Bar Bulletin’s History
The Bar Bulletin has existed since 1957. Traditionally, a volunteer attorney has served as its editor, and in recent decades has received a modest stipend from KCBA.
Longstanding editor Gene Barton, who served from 2005 to 2019, was a former journalist. Aided by a standing Bar Bulletin Committee, which helped him plan future issues, solicit contributions, and review proofs, Barton ensured that the Bar Bulletin adhered to journalistic norms. In 2020, KCBA’s then-Executive Director eliminated the Bar Bulletin Committee.
The Impetus for the Task Force
The Task Force was formed last year, after the Bar Bulletin published an article called “From the River to the Sea” in the February 2024 issue.
The article was published on the front page of the Bulletin, above the fold, and was not labeled as opinion. It described Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip as genocide, likened it to white Americans’ treatment of Native Americans, termed Israel a settler colony, and defended the legitimacy of the slogan “From the River to the Sea.” It was these parts of the article that generated controversy. About half of the article, however, did not discuss the events in Gaza, and instead described what the author saw as the public and private censorship of, and the loss of employment suffered by, Americans with pro-Palestine views.
Soon after the article’s publication, KCBA leadership began to receive many complaints. Generally, these complaints objected to what they believed were the antisemitic language and viewpoint of the article. And because the article was published on the front page, above the fold, and without any disclaimer, many complainants assumed that the article represented KCBA’s views rather than the author’s.
In response, the KCBA Board swiftly removed the article from the KCBA website and apologized for what it described as a “twofold” mistake. First, the Board said, the Bar Bulletin failed to note that the article did not represent the “perspective or position of the KCBA.” Second, the article’s “subject matter” was “beyond the scope of the mission of the King County Bar Association and our Bar Bulletin,” since KCBA was “not a partisan or political organization and our role is not to weigh in on international affairs or policy.”
Evaluating the Board’s Response to the Controversy
In the Task Force’s view, the Board’s response to “From the River to the Sea” was broadly justified. KCBA is a voluntary bar association whose continuation turns on its responsiveness to members and reputation in the legal community. Given the volume of complaints, it was appropriate to criticize the article’s placement and make clear that it did not reflect KCBA’s own views, since many complainants had assumed otherwise.
It was likewise reasonable to decide that much of the article’s subject matter went beyond the KCBA’s proper scope. There is nothing wrong in principle with the KCBA focusing on domestic legal matters of immediate practical concern and leaving international matters, however momentous, to other organizations.
For precisely that reason, moreover, the Board’s apology letter was right to express no opinion on the views or language of “From the River to the Sea.” If the subject matter of the article went beyond the scope of KCBA’s mission, as the Board said it did, it would have been inconsistent to express a viewpoint on that subject matter.
Still, the decision to remove the article, and to apologize for its placement and publication, did have the effect of singling out the article for special treatment. Since the KCBA had appointed a new Bar Bulletin editor in 2021, the Bar Bulletin had printed numerous articles with strong views on political issues. Other articles had even weighed in on international affairs and policy. The Board did not remove these articles, nor did it apologize for their publication. This inconsistency means that KCBA was — in effect, if not in conscious intent — treating a particular viewpoint differently from other political content or content on international affairs.
The inconsistency could have been prevented if KCBA leadership had intervened earlier to control the content of the Bar Bulletin, by putting tighter guidelines on the editor’s discretion.
More broadly, what happened in February 2024 shows that greater oversight of the Bar Bulletin and more checks on the editor’s power are needed.
The Editorial Practices of Bar Associations
The Task Force surveyed 70 bar associations about their editorial practices and gleaned additional information about those practices from the organizations’ websites. This investigation revealed a range of practices.
Some bar publications have editorial boards that must approve all content. Others rely solely on volunteer editors, with little day-to-day oversight from organizational leadership.
Some organizations use written editorial guidelines. Others do not. The guidelines we found, however, have much in common with each other. Among other things, they tend to require that published content focus on current legal issues of practical interest to the general bar, to prohibit or disfavor opinion pieces, and to forbid personal or identity-based criticisms of specific persons or organizations.
Our investigation revealed no single, best editorial model for KCBA to follow. It was instructive, though, that the written guidelines that we found shared so many commonalities.
Recommendations
Relying on what it learned in its investigation, the Task Force made several recommendations to the Board.
The Task Force recommended that, while the Board should not interfere in day-to-day editorial decisions, it should monitor the content of the Bar Bulletin more closely.
Conferring editorial discretion on a volunteer attorney is desirable. And I am confident that the new editor of the Bar Bulletin — who, like past editor Gene Barton, has many years of journalism experience — will use that discretion wisely.
But prudence does support some checks on editorial discretion. One such check, the Task Force recommended, would be broadly stated editorial guidelines, which would create useful guardrails and a shared understanding of the Bar Bulletin’s purpose.
To that end, the Task Force proposed editorial guidelines for the KCBA Board to consider adopting. These guidelines, among other things, create a strong presumption against publishing pieces that express an opinion on partisan politics or international affairs. (Note that this presumption applies to opinions about, rather than discussion of, those subjects.) The presumption can be overcome, however, if the Bar Bulletin editor determines that expressing the opinion is “sufficiently important to the mission of the Bar,” and if the Bar President, or his or her delegee, approves publication. Opinion pieces must also be clearly labeled as such.
As another check on editorial discretion, the Task Force recommended that the Board reestablish a Bar Bulletin Committee to review content before publication, monitor adherence to guidelines, and ensure that complaints are addressed transparently.
To sum up: the Bar Bulletin Task Force recommended greater oversight and the adoption of broad editorial guidelines. By implementing these recommendations, the Task Force believes, KCBA can restore trust in the Bar Bulletin, maintain editorial integrity, and prevent future crises.
