Vanessa Holton, the general counsel who led the California state bar's legal department over a tumultuous six-plus years, will retire this summer, the bar announced Monday.

Holton arrived at the state bar in 2015 as the agency was trying to recover from scandal, lawsuits and internal upheaval marked by the firing a year earlier of Executive Director Joe Dunn and the departure of then-general counsel Thomas Miller. She leaves as the bar is facing fresh scrutiny over the adequacy of its work to discipline lawyers.