Optimistic is a word I don't often use when it comes to the machinations of the State Bar of California. But the recent appointment of the second rules revision commission has me feeling positively optimistic. Well, cautiously optimistic.

As I wrote in this space last October, after years of fits and starts, and with far more fits than starts, the State Bar Commission for the Revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct, the first commission whose task was a soup-to-nuts revision of California's ethics rules, was disbanded by order of the Supreme Court with essentially none of its work product being adopted despite over a decade of work. The court ordered a new rules commission be created by the bar with input from the court, and on Jan. 30 the members of that rules commission were announced.

I'm hopeful about the makeup of that group. For those unfamiliar with this column, let me make my bias clear: the desire to see that protection of clients and the public come before the self-protection of lawyers.

MEET THE PLAYERS

By naming an appellate justice, Lee Edmon, as chair, State Bar President Craig Holden, who was given the power of appointment by the bar board, helped ensure a measure of objectivity and, one would hope, a concern for the public interest. By naming Jeffrey Bleich as co-vice chair, Holden chose someone who, when State Bar president in 2007, was keenly aware of the importance of the ethics rule revisions, and the first commission's problems. In addition, Bleich, most recently the U.S. ambassador to Australia, has a long history of advocating for the public good.