For well over a 100 years, The Jacksonville Bar Association has worked tirelessly to maintain the honor and dignity of the legal profession and to improve and strengthen our justice system. In order to achieve these goals, our Bar Association must sometimes play a leadership role when legal issues of great interest confront our community. The latest issue involving the legal community concerns the well-publicized issues over the proposed courthouse.
A courthouse is more than just a building. It symbolizes the notion that the rule of law is the protector of liberty. Most courthouses in our country have traditionally occupied a location of importance such as the traditional town square or center of the community. The strength of the foundation and pillars of a courthouse truly represent our reliance on the rule of law. It is for these reasons that The Jacksonville Bar Association Board of Governors has actively supported a new courthouse worthy of our community.
Early last month, our Board of Governors had the opportunity to look at the current plans for the Duval County Courthouse with judges A. C. Soud and Mallory Cooper. As a result of this review and conference with the judges, our Board of Governors passed a resolution stating that our community needs a courthouse which will satisfactorily address the legal needs of the citizens of Jacksonville for the next 50 years and that the current architectural plans for the new Duval County Courthouse were appropriate for the administration of justice in our community. This resolution was printed in our Bar Bulletin last month. We provided this resolution to Mayor John Peyton as well as members of our City Council.
Public Service
As many of you already know, the theme for The Florida Bar this year is promoting the legal needs of children. In following this lead, The Jacksonville Bar Association is sponsoring a new program in hopes of addressing juvenile delinquency by improving literacy. Judge Karen Cole has been working hard actively promoting a literacy project which will hopefully address some of the problems with juvenile delinquency in our community. Our Bar Association hopes to be part of the community-wide solution to illiteracy by speaking to public and civic groups about the relationship between illiteracy and juvenile delinquency. The statistics on the relationship between illiteracy and juvenile delinquency are indeed eye opening. Approximately 15-20 percent of Americans have some form of a reading disability. Many of those illiterate younger Americans become involved in our justice system as juvenile delinquents. Through our Literacy Speakers Bureau, we will share information to members of our community about the nature, frequency, and social impact of reading problems and about the early identification of treatment of those problems. We will distribute brochures from the United States Department of Education and will share information about our community and national resources which address this problem. Of course, members of our Association are not experts on the issue, but will merely act as conduits for this essential information from respected sources.
Those lawyers volunteering for this Speakers Bureau will receive several hours of instruction from School Psychologist, Laura Bailet, Ph.d. of Nemours Children’s Clinic and school psychologist Michael Sisbarro, Ph.d. of Sheldon J. Kaplan, Ph.d. and Associations, about the reading research from Yale University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and other respected institutions of higher learning. After this instruction, our lawyers will be able to better educate our community on the problem of illiteracy as well as the solution. I hope that you will take time to volunteer and participate in our Literacy Speakers Bureau. You will be able to sign up for the program at the Nov. 20 luncheon at the Omni. Already, we have almost 20 members who have agreed to participate. We certainly appreciate the efforts of Board member Alan Pickert who is chairing this program.
We are honored that our November speaker will be San Diego Superior Court Judge James R. Milliken, who is a nationally recognized leader on literacy remediation with juvenile delinquents. He has served as a presiding judge of the Juvenile Court of San Diego County in California and has been deeply involved in many reforms of the juvenile delinquency system, including literacy reforms. Please join us for this important luncheon meeting by making your reservation this week.
CLE Seminar
Before the Nov. 20 luncheon you can attend the Corporate Banking & Business Section’s Seminar on “What every business practitioner should know about the 2003 amendments to the Florida Business Corporation Act (Chapter 607) from 9 a.m. to noon. This program has been accredited 3.0 CLE hours by The Florida Bar.
Bench and Bar
On Dec. 11, our Association will sponsor the annual Bench and Bar Party, which will be held at the Riverplace Tower South Bank Grill from 5:30-7:30 p.m. This is one of the more popular social functions of the year and is always well attended. We are asking all Bar members to make reservations for this members only event. We hope that you will be able to kick off your holidays with this social function.