California’s state bar association, which is responsible for licensing and regulating more than 250,000 lawyers in the most populous US state, is itself under scrutiny for a data leak that allowed confidential client complaint and attorney disciplinary record data to be captured by a free court records website.
As many as 322,500 such documents were vacuumed up by JudyRecords.com between October 2021 and February 2022, according to a proposed class action filed against the California bar by two lawyers, a former judge, and three people with attorney grievances, all of whom are proceeding anonymously.
When a state bar experiences a data breach, confidential information stored in disciplinary files could be a target, and releasing those files could potentially lead to doxing, extortion, or identity theft, as well as to litigation against the bar, according to attorneys who spoke to Bloomberg Law about the matter.
Accusing the State Bar of California of invasion of privacy, negligence, and violation of the state’s Information Practices Act, those suing it are seeking money damages and injunctive relief. Also named as defendants in the case are the vendor that supplied the CalBar…
