At its midyear meeting in San Diego in February, the American Bar Association gave its members a financial report showing that the nonprofit was sitting on a total of $311.6 million in cash, stocks, financial derivatives and other long-term investments at the end of its last fiscal year. That’s a nice chunk of money, and the fund has doubled since 2009. Still, the ABA isn’t resting easy.
One reason that the nonprofit group has built this financial stockpile is that it’s concerned about its future. Executive director Jack Rives laid out the ABA’s problem in a frank speech to delegates on the meeting’s last day: “Our number of dues-paying members has gone down every year for the last 10 years. That’s terrible.”
