Legislation to dismantle KBA is not reform — it’s a constitutional threat | Opinion

When I swore to support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of this commonwealth as a new member of the Kentucky Bar Association, I never dreamed the threat against whom I would have to make this stand would be the legislature of my own Kentucky home.

In an unprecedented attack on Kentucky’s heart of justice, Republican House Bill 526 seeks to dismantle the Kentucky Bar Association—the very body that ensures ethics, competence, and the fair and efficient delivery of justice the public depends on.

This bill would eliminate Kentucky’s unified bar by ending compulsory membership in the KBA. But the KBA is not a private club. It is the administrative arm of the Kentucky Supreme Court — a foundational part of the state’s justice system.

The unified bar ensures every Kentucky lawyer meets the same ethical and professional standards. It provides low-cost continuing legal education, free legal research tools, mentoring for young lawyers, disaster-response coordination, and a single, accountable structure for discipline and oversight. These are not perks for lawyers. They are protections for the public.

It’s confounding. These are good public servants. Why not think positively, engage in preemptive peace, and ask, “What can I do to unite and do the most good for all concerned?” Instead, this radical Republican move does the opposite — hurting the profession and the public alike.

It is also an attack on the poor and powerless because our unified bar quietly cross-subsidizes the parts of the profession that serve the public most: rural and small-firm lawyers, pro bono programs, young-lawyer development, and disaster-response legal services. In a voluntary system, the programs that don’t generate revenue die first. And those are precisely the programs that serve the public, not the lawyers.

There is no real-world problem HB 526 solves

Legislation is usually born from real harm or systemic failure, not to rip asunder success. There is not a single documented instance of the KBA violating any lawyer’s freedom of speech or association. Not one. In fact, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Keller decision in 1990, the KBA adopted a refund process for any lawyer who believed their dues funded objectionable speech. Yet Kentucky lawyers have never used it. Not a single lawyer has ever requested a refund.

Beyond the effectiveness of our current system, HB 526 violates Kentucky’s Constitution. The Supreme Court has inherent authority to regulate the practice of law. The legislature’s attempt to rip the KBA from the Court’s control is a direct intrusion into the judiciary’s domain. Kentucky’s separation-of-powers doctrine is among the strictest in the nation. HB 526 violates it.

And here’s the nub: HB 526 does not exist in isolation. It is part of a broader national Republican playbook direct from the White House: the deliberate weakening of long-standing institutions, the erosion of public trust, and the steady dismantling of the civic structures that uphold the rule of law.

Thus, we’ve seen them delegitimize elections, excuse political violence, and undermine courts. HB 526 follows a familiar script: invent a problem, attack the institution that solves it, and leave the public with less protection and less stability.

This is not conservatism. It is destabilization. It is thoroughly un-American. And it is dangerous.

A call to action

Kentuckians cannot afford to sleep through this moment. Since we care about justice, since we care about the independence of our courts, since we care about the civic fabric that holds this state together, we must speak up — loudly, clearly, now.

Contact your legislators. Tell them to reject HB 526. Tell them to defend the Kentucky Supreme Court’s constitutional authority.

Our justice system — and our democracy — depend on it.

Richard Dawahare is a Lexington attorney.