An association representing legal discipline defense counsel is calling on the California State Bar to quickly notify lawyers, complainants, witnesses and others whose information may have been publicly exposed in a data breach that exposed some 260,000 confidential attorney discipline case records.

Jean Cha, president of the Association of Discipline Defense Counsel, said in an interview that the bar needs to comply with a 2020 opinion from its own Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct. That opinion, which applies to lawyers and not the state bar as an agency, said lawyers whose client information is breached must “conduct a reasonable inquiry” into the leak and notify any of those clients who have a “reasonable possibility” of being negatively impacted by the disclosure.