About The San Joaquin County Bar

Our mission is to promote the San Joaquin County legal community and the integrity of our legal system.

SINCE ITS HUMBLE beginnings in 1940 and throughout the intervening decades, the San Joaquin County Bar Association has served the legal community of San Joaquin County, providing the local courts with many, if not most, of its Judges. A review of the old Directories and Membership rosters at the Bar made that only too clear. Members in those early documents are on our courts today, or recently retired from the Court. Today’s Bar members may be the future judges of our local courts, the state courts or perhaps beyond. Those old records also indicated annual events that have fallen by the wayside—the annual Gala, the annual Picnic, Golf Tournament, People’s Law School, booths at the County Fair, perhaps more.

As a non-profit California Corporation, the Board of Governors consisting of twelve (12) governors, directs the activities and operations of the SJCBA. As a membership organization, the Bar acts through its Committees and Sections and is only as active as its members—if you’re not on a committee—volunteer now.

If you’re a member of a Section and don’t participate, start now. All of the Committees and the Executive Committees of most sections meet no more than once a month during the lunch hour (and they even provide lunch).

If time constraints prohibit an on-going commitment, set aside one of our events and volunteer to spend a day giving legal advice at Law Day or other legal clinic, set up for MCLE, tend a booth at an outside activity, tend the registration table for even one day out of the year or volunteer to speak about the law at a local school.

We have activities that would interest any member.

• If the workings of the Courts and their interaction with the legal community is your concern, the Judicial Liaison and Probate Committees are specifically geared toward this. (See our committee listings and contact them now.)
• If social activities are your focus, join the Barristers or the Paralegals who, between the two of them, sponsor almost monthly mixers and other social events. The mixers are designed for all members but if you're not the Barrister or Paralegal type,  the Program Committee can use your enthusiasm in developing regular and new events.
• If you're a paralegal, legal assistant, legal document preparer or an attorney without support staff, join the Paralegal Section for nuts and bolts MCLE, networking and social mixers.
• If travel is your passion, the ad hoc Member Benefits Committee is working on foreign travel MCLE programs as well as non-MCLE trips for members and families.
• If you know a pre-law, paralegal or law student who’d like to meet lawyers and judges, get them to volunteer for our events. At the very least, we can provide them with lunch or admission to an event; at best, they may meet their future employer. Give them a Membership Application and have your firm pay for their membership.