How Much for a Bar Association Bash?

In the coming days, 33,000 lawyers will receive forms in the mail to pay their 2006 membership to the Israel Bar Association. The projected NIS 32 million will cover the lion's share of the professional association's NIS 41 million annual budget.

The rest of the bar's income comes from registering articled clerks and administering bar certification exams.

So where does the money go? About 40 percent goes to the various district offices. The remaining NIS 25 million covers administration of the bar's Jerusalem and Tel Aviv offices, including the NIS 1.2 million in staff salaries.

The budget includes a few rather odd items. For some reason, the Tel Aviv building is very costly to clean and the bar will spend NIS 40,000 on cleaning supplies for the Tel Aviv offices in 2006 - NIS 3,300 per month. The bar also plans on spending NIS 24,000 a month on phone bills next year.

The bar also needs to spend NIS 450,000 on its spokeswoman and publicity.

The bar council and its committees have been allocated NIS 350,000. This includes items like NIS 40,000 for parking and NIS 140,000 for snacks (NIS 12,000 per month). Running the bar's Web site costs NIS 380,000 annually. Let's not forget NIS 680,000 slated to pay for cultural events and professional training - NIS 80,000 for a beginning of the year party and NIS 360,000 for the training.