California Bar ‘Outsiders’ Take on Top Leadership Roles

For the first time, two of the California State Bar’s most important leaders aren’t lawyers.

José Cisneros and Mark Toney said in an exclusive conversation with Bloomberg Law they expect their experience holding public leaders accountable will help the bar recover from its February exam disaster, and continue changes following reports of disgraced attorney Tom Girardi’s sway at the organization.

Cisneros, the new Board of Trustees chair, has worked as San Francisco’s elected treasurer for more than two decades. Toney, the Board’s vice chair, has led consumer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network for nearly as long.

“This is a message from the [California] Supreme Court,” Toney said. “They’re the ones that made the appointment here, and I think it’s a message of their level of confidence that at this point in time, the state bar would benefit from having two outsiders, if you will, serve in leadership positions.”

The Board of Trustees is scheduled to approve by May a recommendation to the state’s Supreme Court to determine whether California continues developing its own bar exam, after their first try glitched and crashed widely, or adopt the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ new NextGen test.

The test spurred litigation and multiple audits, both internally and from outside the bar.

The California Supreme Court approved on Thursday a plan that increases the authority of a separate group within the bar organization, the Committee of Bar Examiners. The CBE will now set the admissions fund’s budget and will require the bar to develop standards for vetting vendors—though the Board of Trustees will remain involved.

“We both lived through the February 2025 bar exam, and we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to learn from that experience, to integrate those learnings into all of our actions,” Cisneros said.

The Bar’s leadership has largely turned over since the exam, with executive director Leah Wilson, who retired in July, replaced by Laura Enderton-Speed, a California courts insider.

But the path forward on the California bar exam has divided those who remain.

Toney said he feels obligated to “do what we can in a responsible way” to continue developing a California-only exam. The bar would need the state Supreme Court’s approval to chose a different route, he said.

Cisneros said the bar should “think long and hard before we implement any changes, large or small,” and noted July test-takers were largely satisfied with the bar’s return to a national exam.

“Let’s continue to work on other options, but in the meantime, until they’re ready, deliver something we know works,” he said.

The Treasurer

Cisneros, appointed to the Board in 2019, led the bar’s internal review responding to reports that it failed to act on hundreds of disciplinary complaints filed for decades against Girardi, who exercised significant influence at the agency.

Many of the complaints centered the ex-lawyer’s failure to distribute settlement funds. Girardi was convicted in 2024 on four counts of wire fraud in California federal court for stealing client funds and is currently serving a seven-plus year prison term.

During that review, Cisneros challenged the bar’s policy of closing investigations after complaints were withdrawn, and the bar’s practice of investigating lawyers’ handling of settlement money only after complaints were filed, he said.

He drew on his tax collection experience to help the bar launch its client trust account protection program, inspired by his office’s insight into accounting statements and other taxpayer records and its power to launch surprise audits.

“I said, when it comes to people handling other people’s money, I think they deserve just as much scrutiny as we are allowed to have when we’re collecting government money or tax monies,” Cisneros said.

He pointed to a recent report that around eighty percent of firms that volunteered for a free state bar audit of their client trust accounts weren’t fully in compliance with California rules.

“We really hit a nerve here, where we were able to help in an area that perhaps wasn’t a primary focus for these firms, but they nevertheless wanted to do the right thing and appreciated the guidance to help them do that,” Cisneros said.

The Organizer

Toney gained a reputation among February exam takers as being particularly receptive to their concerns.

He honed the skill as the executive director of The Utility Reform Network, which works with community organizations to push the California Public Utilities Commission and other bodies for more affordable phone services and clean energy.

“I’ve been the outsider throwing rocks all my life, and I had to ask myself the question: ‘Am I leader enough to be on the inside and to be held responsible for making something work?’” Toney said of his 2020 appointment to the board.

“I know for a fact that it’s so much harder to make things work than it is to criticize them,” he said.

Toney scours board agendas prior to meetings to check that items designated for a closed session belong there, and to ask whether items on the list to be approved without discussion are in any way controversial and should instead be addressed at length, he said.

“He has dealt with difficult situations that have very high stakes,” said University of Santa Clara law professor Catherine Sandoval, a former commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission, about Toney. “I’m confident that his experience and the quality of his leadership, his willingness to listen and convene, will be helpful.”