A method of listing Bar members’ 10-year disciplinary history on the Bar Web site has been approved by The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors.
The board, at its recent Tampa meeting, accepted the recommendations of the Communications Committee, which could be implemented by this summer.
Committee Chair-elect Richard Tanner told the board that the new method would utilize the member biography pages on the Bar Web site’s “Find a Lawyer” section.
Each member’s page, he said, will have a “10-year Discipline History” item added. The word “none” will appear if the member has had no discipline during that period and the word “yes” will appear if there is a history.
When the cursor is placed on the line, Tanner said, a message will appear advising that by clicking a displayed link, the member’s 10-year discipline history will be displayed. That includes, he added, all admonishments, reprimands, suspensions, and disbarments.
In addition, if the member has a disciplinary history extending beyond 10 years, when the viewer puts the cursor on the link, a further message will be displayed which says, “For information about any disciplinary actions for this attorney that occurred more than 10 years ago, please contact The Florida Bar via e-mail at [email protected].”
The committee also recommended including a statement on the main Find a Lawyer page on the Web site, which leads to the individual members’ bio pages, noting that until a rule was changed in 1990, private reprimands were allowed in some discipline cases and those records remain sealed.
Young Lawyers Division President John Stewart questioned the information advising viewers to contact the Bar for a member’s discipline history more than 10 years old.
“Notwithstanding that it says ‘10-year disciplinary history,’ it’s really the entire history,” said Stewart. “It becomes a scarlet letter issue. We think after 10 years in some cases it (a disciplinary history) becomes irrelevant. If it’s 10-year history, it should be 10-year history.”
But Tanner noted the proposal stems from the recommendations of the Special Commission on Lawyer Regulation, which wanted all public Bar discipline records made available online without a time restriction.
In response to another question, Tanner said lawyers who accept a diversion to a Bar ethics or professionalism course to end a grievance investigation will not have that information listed online.
The board approved the committee’s recommendation by voice vote, with several dissents.
— Courtesy The Florida Bar