While a California bar leader expressed confidence Wednesday that the Office of Chief Trial Counsel will “address” the recently exposed racist, misogynistic and antisemitic emails exchanged by two former Big Law attorneys, recent history suggests there’s little the agency can do to police lawyers who spout discriminatory comments.

Ruben Duran, chair of the state bar’s board of trustees, called the 14-year trove of correspondence between former Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith attorneys John Barber and Jeffrey Ranen “damaging and abhorrent, perhaps most especially when demonstrated and used by the profession entrusted to uphold the law.”