Having served as chair of the Practicing with Professionalism Section of The Jacksonville Bar Association for this past year, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the new events and activities undertaken by several of the section’s committees and to thank them for their efforts.
This article is not intended to be exhaustive, as the Diversity Committee, led by Monique Brown and Amber Donley, was previously featured in the March Bulletin for their innovations and efforts with the successful Minority Mentoring Picnic.
One of the special aspects of practicing litigation in Jacksonville is our truly outstanding judges and their staff, and the respect and civility generally exchanged by counsel in our courts.
It is my hope the section’s efforts this past year will support continued professionalism in our local courts.
First, I want to focus on the Judicial Relations Committee. Under leaders Bruce Maxwell and Heather Quick, the Judicial Relations Committee has expanded its programming to create more opportunities to interact with the judges, to learn what is important to them and to build the types of relationships that foster even greater professionalism among members of the Bar.
The committee’s always successful Sidebar Lunches have been expanded to include programs focused on appellate practice, as well as new programming focused on federal practitioners.
The committee also introduced the “Judge’s JAs and Java” quarterly events at the courthouse. These informal gatherings provide a great opportunity to mingle with the judiciary and, perhaps even more importantly, show appreciation to their judicial assistants for the invaluable assistance they provide.
This event also allows attorneys to personally meet some of the judicial assistants they might otherwise only know through telephone or email exchanges due to the physical configuration and security procedures at the courthouse.
Finally, the Judicial Relations Committee just sponsored its second midyear Bench and Bar mixer June 16. That event was well attended and enjoyed by many lawyers and members of the both the state and federal benches.
The second committee I want to focus on is the Professionalism Committee led by Christian George. While that committee has for several years sponsored a CLE seminar focused on what it means to be “professional,” this year’s seminar took the event to another level.
The seminar was held on-site at The Players Championship (hence the name “The Professionalism Conference at The Players Championship” or “TPC at TPC”).
The seminar featured panel discussions that included many perspectives on lawyer professionalism: state and federal judges, administrative law judges, participants in The Florida Bar’s grievance process and practitioners of varied experience.
Jacksonville Bar CLE events are rarely held outside of Downtown, but this initial event, held on a “work day” drew well over 100 participants. No doubt “TPC at TPC” was a success and in future years this event will continue and grow.
The common thread running through all of these events is putting the key participants in our profession — lawyers, judges, and staff — in face-to-face settings that build relationships and foster discussion of how best to serve our profession and, by extension, the clients who provide our collective livelihood.
This is not accidental. Having now practiced more than 22 years, I am constantly struck by how often, due to technology and changes in communication norms, I am representing a client or litigating against an opposing counsel that I have never actually met in person.
I have long harbored a suspicion that such “technology assisted anonymity” left unchecked will eventually erode the very type of respect and civility that makes practice in Jacksonville special and enjoyable.
Jacksonville and its surrounding communities are great places to practice law and I hope they remain so for many years to come.
I am convinced that by promoting: 1) relationships between the members of the bench and the Bar; 2) ready and easy communications with court staff; and 3) a legal community willing to confront and address less-than-professional conduct when it occurs, we will allow our local practice to remain both special and professional for the long term.
Thank you to all whose efforts this past year contributed to these goals.