American Bar Assn

Some of us who have never studied law wonder about the legal status of a fetus or a baby in the womb--whichever way one prefers to think of it. When does it become a citizen of the United States of America with all the legal rights of a citizen? Does it have these rights when it is conceived? When it is capable of living as a separate organism? When it is born and the cord is cut? When the birth is recorded? Does an aborted fetus have any legal rights? Perhaps the answers to these questions should form the basis of the stand that the American Bar Assn.

The first woman to serve as executive director of the American Bar Assn. is resigning amid mixed reviews, ending a sometimes stormy three-year tenure. Jill Wine-Banks, a 47-year-old former Watergate prosecutor, submitted her resignation Thursday to L. Stanley Chauvin Jr., president of the 360,000-member bar. She was hired in August, 1987, for the post, which now pays $225,000 a year. "Although my tenure at the American Bar Assn.

After an intense debate in which several delegates threatened to resign, the American Bar Assn. went on record for the first time Tuesday in support of a woman's constitutional right to choose abortion.

The $51,000 that was raised through a celebrity golf tournament in June sponsored by the Mexican-American Bar Assn. Scholarship Foundation will be awarded in grants to Orange County Latino high school graduates. Charlotte Serna and Oscar Castro will receive $3,000 each as the winners of the the Efren Herrera Foundation Scholarship Award. (Herrera was the tournament chairman.

How do you reconcile your story about the high-paid law clerks ("The $1,100 a Week Summer Job: L.A. Law Clerks Even Get a Free Lunch," June 11) with the American Bar Assn.'s 1987 salary survey showing that the median income for lawyers is $68,922? The ABA concluded that most lawyers earn only upper middle-class incomes, contrary to the implications of your story. It would seem that a good portion of those high-priced clerks will be in for a disappointment when they get out in the real world.

Bork has not only been a highly respected professor, solicitor general and federal judge, but the American Bar Assn. has twice given him its highest rating, first in 1981 and again this year. I am certain that reason will prevail over politics. Bork will be confirmed by the Senate. I fully agree with Reagan that "he'll go down in history as one of the finest Supreme Court justices our nation has ever had." L.A. VALIUKAS Los Angeles

Referring to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White's recent address to the American Bar Assn., the Times editorial ("A Justice on Justice," Aug. 12) suggests that judicial retention elections cause "serious damage to the rule of law" by creating "political or other pressures (on sitting judges) that threaten to distort their judgment." Naturally, your editorial cited the voter's rejection of former California Chief Justice Rose Bird as an example of this damage. The Times continues to underestimate the intelligence and integrity of the substantial majority of voters who determined that Bird and two of her colleagues (former Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin)

After a three-year campaign to upgrade its faculty, facilities and entrance standards, Western State University College of Law has been refused accreditation by the American Bar Assn., college officials confirmed Friday. Officials of the privately owned college, with 1,500 students on campuses in San Diego and Fullerton, will seek reconsideration and hope to meet with the ABA's Committee on Accreditation late in June, said James M. Brower, dean of the Fullerton campus.