by Bradley Parsons
and Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writers
How do you get a judge more interested in the Jacksonville Bar Association?
It’s not the opening for a jurist joke (although it sounds like a promising setup). Rather, it’s a question often pondered by the incoming JBA president. This year is no exception.
JBA President-elect Alan Pickert said he wants Duval County’s judges more involved in the JBA’s meetings and missions, and said he’s prepared to make changes to make the local Bar more accessible to jurists. Pickert will take over the presidency from Reginald Luster at Thursday’s JBA meeting at the Omni Hotel.
Under his leadership, Pickert said JBA functions will start and finish on time. The luncheon meetings, in particular, have had a tendency to drag on past the scheduled closing, said Pickert, forcing judges to choose between their lunches and their docket.
“Start at noon, end at 1 p.m.,” said Pickert. “I know that it’s easier said than done, but I’m going to ask all of our speakers to honor that.
“Judges have busy dockets and they need to get back to court. Judges are really going beyond the call of duty, making time out of their schedule to attend the meetings. The least we can do is return the courtesy,” he said.
The relationship between judges and lawyers is particularly important to cultivate now because of the challenges facing the local legal community, said Pickert. Several local firms have joined Chief Judge Don Moran’s lobbying for the City to continue with construction on a new County Courthouse. And the JBA’s annual Law Day Luncheon hosted former state Supreme Court Justice Joseph Hatchett, who called for the legal community to rally together against political attacks from state and federal legislatures.
“There are pressing issues,” said Pickert. “When you’re talking about separation of powers and the Courthouse. What I’d like to see is everybody educated on these issues, so we’re sending a consistent message.”
Circuit Court Judge Brett Shore agrees with Pickert regarding the timeliness of JBA’s meetings.
“More judges would probably come if they make sure to start on time and end at a reasonable time so we can keep our commitments,” said Shore.
Shore also said he would like to see the JBA conduct more meetings where attorneys and members of the judiciary could get a chance to mingle.
“The more opportunities we have to interact and share our opinions with each other, the better the relationship will become,” he said.
Circuit Court Judge Karen Cole also agrees that more interaction between the bench and the bar is important, but she said the local judiciary is already quite involved in many aspects.
“We are involved in countless ways,” she said. “We have a judicial breakfast with the Young Lawyers Section of the Jacksonville Bar. We have judges that participate in bar-sponsored seminars. We have judges that participate in the Literacy Speakers Bureau and the holiday projects.”
Though Cole thinks the bar has done a good job of keeping the monthly meetings on track, she said a surefire way to increase judicial participation is for the two sides to meet and talk about past concerns.
“I think an internal conversation between members of the bar leadership and members of the bench would elicit areas of shared interest and concerns,” she said.