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For years, a state bar committee charged with recommending where millions of dollars in legal aid money for the poor should go has done its work in relative obscurity.

The 24-member Legal Services Trust Fund Commission, composed of volunteers, including 15 lawyers and three bench officers, works with bar staff to scrutinize organizations seeking a share of funds generated by Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts, state funds and donations.

The money is never enough to meet the demand for civil legal services for the indigent, and the commission's work and recommendations, approved annually by the board of trustees, has never received much scrutiny—until now.

After the Legislature and critics pushed the state bar to drop its professional advocacy role and become a more traditional regulatory agency, bar leaders are re-evaluating whether they should rely so heavily on the 15 volunteer committees that perform some facet of bar work, including the trust fund commission. One proposal under consideration would eliminate the commission and put the grant-handling duties entirely in the hands of bar staff and the board of trustees.

“This is an area where I think the board has been absent,” board president Michael Colantuono said at a recent trustees' hearing. “I think it's too important an area for us to continue to be absent.”

That idea—eliminating the committee-middleman—worries some in the legal aid community who say the work is too complex and time-consuming to foist on trustees who are focused on an array of other issues.

The commission “is really necessary for meaningful oversight,” said Salena Copeland, executive director for the Legal Aid Association of California.

Legal aid groups have urged bar officials to slow down any consideration of overhauling the trust fund commission's mission or of axing it altogether. That pushback may have worked. Original plans to have the board of trustees consider action in September have been dropped “pending a re-engagement with stakeholders” this fall.

“We think that's an incredibly smart decision,” Copeland said.

At stake is the direction of approximately $60 million in grants, a number recently boosted by limited-term funds tied to banks' settlements over mortgage foreclosure litigation. Colantuono said at a July meeting of trustees that legal aid groups should have “a sufficient voice” in debating the commission's future so “that they do not feel compelled” to complain to the Legislature.

But Colantuono also warned against creating the appearance that legal aid groups that receive grants play a role influencing how the commission makes spending recommendations.

“There needs to be not only the appearance but the substance of disinterested oversight,” he said. “Because as much as I love all those folks and admire the work they do, they have very much at stake in these discussions, and they cannot be or appear to” have conflicts of interest.

The bar's board of trustees appoints 14 of the commission's members; the chief justice appoints the rest. Three non-voting judges also serve. Members can't be employees or board members of current grant recipients. More than 70 organizations around the state received funding this year, including nonprofits handling workplace, housing, disability rights and health care legal issues.

Trust fund commission co-chair Richard Reinis, a partner at Thompson Coburn, said the panel had not taken a position yet on any board proposal. He had not heard Colantuono's remarks. Reinis estimated that he spends 50 to 75 hours a year working on the “granular” grant-making process for the bar commission.

“It took me a few years to learn what it is that the commission does,” said Reinis, who was appointed in 2013 by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. “I was really surprised by the learning curve.”

An ad hoc committee of the trust fund commission is scheduled to meet by phone Wednesday to discuss the state bar's proposals. A separate bar committee will consider related issues Friday in a conference call.