Student Bar Association Question Forum

[wakahaka]

So the SBA at my school sent out an e-mail a couple weeks ago saying SBA dues are mandatory according to the ABA and you won't be in good standing with some pre-Bar certification thing and some other vaguely threatening stuff. I called one of the deans who said they weren't mandatory but "You really should pay them because they do so many good things around campus..." to which I responded, somewhat gently, "Yeah, but I don't really like being told they're mandatory when they're not." She seemed to think the matter had been cleared up and that it had been made clear that the initial e-mail was a misunderstanding, notwithstanding the fact that literally no other 1L that I've talked to seems to have received this new information. So of course now I don't want to pay them just on principle, but anyway...

tl;dr My question is, are SBAs good to join/good on a resume? Or is it a waste of my time and resources?