Two California legal nonprofits are in a standoff over the letters C, L and A.

In one corner is the California Lawyers Association, or CLA, a nonprofit spun out of the California State Bar in 2018 that provides MCLE programs and advocacy for the legal profession. The organization filed an application to trademark its logo—a map of the state overlaid with its name and the initials CLA—in March 2018 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.