When the new Duval County Courthouse opens next May, our Jacksonville Bar Association members will have a 1,700-square-foot, state-of-the-art Attorney Conference Center, complete with Wi-Fi connectivity, workstations and copy and facsimile machines.
This conference center is located on the second floor across the hall from the Law Library, with easy access to the escalators and elevators for vertical transportation to all courtrooms and chambers.
Deposition rooms are also on the same hallway along with Family courtrooms, Delinquency and Dependency courtrooms and hearing rooms for magistrates. It will be a substantially more user-friendly space than what is currently available.
It is important to note that the conference center is being fully equipped and furnished by donations from The JBA member firms.
The JBA Board of Governors member Braxton Gillam is in charge of the effort to raise the significant, necessary funds to make this a first-class business facility.
Firms and lawyers who contribute $5,000, $2,500 or $1,000 will be perpetually recognized on the wall of the facility. If your firm has not made a contribution, please contact Braxton ([email protected]). Everyone should be a part of this meaningful project that will benefit each of us, as well as future generations of attorneys.
Your input is welcome on suggested features and protocol. Let me humbly suggest a few. I suspect they will be common sense for most of us.
Stop in regularly and stick around for a little while
It seems like a lifetime ago when attorneys would stop by the current space, grab a cup of coffee and simply chat with their colleagues.
Our Bar was smaller then. Everyone knew each other, and new lawyers were not strangers for long. We have lost this charm and the professionalism and accountability that come with it.
Our size is one reason, but so too are time pressures, the information age, the billable hour squeeze, telephone hearings and, for some, decreased court appearances.
Our new courthouse and the Attorney Conference Center offer the opportunity to combat this trend and to recapture some of rewards that come from merely taking the time to know each other.
So, make it a point to stop by the new conference center and budget a few minutes to stick around.
Integrate new faces
In this same spirit, if you see a new face, reach out and introduce the new face to others. If you are the new face, get to know your colleagues. Your relationship with them will last far longer than the case bringing you to the courthouse that day.
Respect deliberate solitude
On the other hand, some of us will need time alone to prepare. The great litigation conundrum is that judges deserve and insist upon preparation while attorneys all too often are hurried due to workload pressures.
It is therefore reasonable to expect that the Attorney Conference Center will be an oasis for members in need of a comfortable place to prepare.
Cubicles will provide needed sanctuary. Let’s respect the privacy and quietude of those in need of time and space to work.
Use the space as needed, but remember others need it too
We have more than 2,100 members, many of whom are in and out of court periodically throughout the week. Those, and less frequent courthouse visitors, are the intended users.
Although the conference center will have the ability to function as “an office away from your office,” it is not intended to be a long-term or worse still, permanent substitute for an office.
For those in need, there is no shortage of lease inventory Downtown. If even a few lawyers use the workspace in the conference center as their “office,” there will be little or no room for the rest of us.
Keep in mind, there also will be meeting rooms outside each of the 51 courtrooms for intensive trial or hearing preparation. Suffice to say, there will be more than adequate space for each of our needs, so long as we keep our own offices open and utilized.
Attorneys only
The purpose of the Attorney Conference Center is to give all attorneys a place to work, read briefs, check messages from their office, make copies, and so on, in a quiet, business environment.
For all other matters, the courthouse has more than 100 multipurpose rooms for meeting with clients before hearings, depositions, last-minute conferences with opposing counsel, sheltering victims, keeping opposing parties separate, and so on.
I look forward to seeing each of you in the Attorney Conference Center.