P.R. Laws tit. 4, § 773
The Bar Association of Puerto Rico shall have the power:
(a) To subsist perpetually under that name, and as a body corporate, to sue and be sued.
(b) To own and use a seal which it may alter at will.
(c) To acquire rights and property, personal as well as real, either by gift, legacy, assessments on its own members, purchase, or otherwise, and to hold, mortgage, lease, and dispose of such property in any form. The proceeds or civil fruits, as well as any other profit made as a result of these transactions authorized herein shall be applied or used pursuant to the purposes and duties of the Bar Association of Puerto Rico.
(d) To appoint its directors and officers.
(e) To adopt bylaws binding on all members as may be provided by the convention prescribed in § 15 of this act, or, in default thereof, by the Governing Board hereinafter provided, and to amend such bylaws in the manner and according to the requirements prescribed therein.
(f) To protect its members in the exercise of their profession, and by the creation of mutual-aid funds, insurance systems and special funds, or otherwise to assist members who retire for physical disability or old age, and the heirs or beneficiaries of those who die.
(g) To exercise such incidental powers as may be necessary to further the purposes and duties conferred by law.
(h) To create a title insurance corporation which shall be subject to the provisions of the Insurance Code of Puerto Rico, Title 26. Eighty percent (80%) of the earnings from the operation of this undertaking shall be devoted by the Bar Association of Puerto Rico to the establishment of law libraries in the seats of the judicial districts of Puerto Rico. Said libraries shall be open to the lawyers and the general public during working hours.
(i) To implement its programs of service to the community and the profession, the Bar Association is hereby authorized to create the Puerto Rico Bar Association Foundation, which shall operate as a nonprofit corporation but, with the approval of the Governing Board, it may engage in investments to attain the purposes of the Bar Association. The Bar Association Foundation shall provide, among others, legal assistance to the indigent and welfare programs.
The Bar Association of Puerto Rico, upon the previous authorization of its General Assembly or of its Governing Board may transfer by purchase or gratuitously to the Puerto Rico Bar Association Foundation and real or personal properties as it may determine advisable or necessary so that the Foundation may attain in full the objectives and aims of its creation.
Real and personal property of the Puerto Rico Bar Association Foundation, as well as the benefits or surpluses that may be derived from the investments and activities which the Bar Association Foundation is hereby empowered to carry out for the purposes of attaining the objectives of this chapter, shall be exempt from any kind of tax.
History —May 14, 1932, No. 43, p. 522, § 2; June 22, 1954, No. 76, p. 386, § 1; June 21, 1962, No. 73, p. 171, § 1; June 30, 1968, No. 170, p. 613, § 1; June 27, 1986, No. 46, p. 137, § 1; Oct. 13, 2009, No. 121, § 1; Nov. 6, 2009, No. 135, § 1.