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Miller leads the YLD

Associate Editor Regular News

Katherine Hurst Miller and Arthur “Chris” Miller
KATHERINE HURST MILLER, the new Young Lawyers Division president — pictured here with her husband, Arthur “Chris” Miller — said the YLD has three goals this year: educate, advocate, and serve. Miller said the YLD is involved in educating and training young lawyers on the law and on lawyering as a profession; advocating for young lawyers and for their interests; and service. “Our board is going to be a model of community service and especially pro bono legal service,” Miller said. “If young lawyers serve where they are needed and where they feel passionate, then we will have a better legal system. Our grant programs and Affiliate Outreach Conference help our local young lawyer affiliates serve throughout the state.”

Miller leads the YLD

Associate Editor

Educate. Advocate. Serve.

Katherine Hurst Miller, the new Young Lawyers Division president, specified those three goals during her installation speech at the 2016 Florida Bar Annual Convention in Orlando.

“You can help us educate, advocate, and serve. Be a speaker or advisor for us. Be a change agent with us. Listen to us. Listen with us. And help us serve those who need lawyers most,” she proclaimed.

Miller has served on the YLD Board of Governors for six years, and as the new president, implored all attorneys to find “one young lawyer to watch out for,” and to support the work of the YLD board.

“In this coming year, I’m asking everyone in this room for your continued support. Find one young lawyer and support that person. Find someone to hire. To promote. To give paid parental leave. To invite to that important meeting. To co-counsel. To treat professionally even if that person makes a mistake. Because somewhere out there are the future bar leaders, our future judges, our future law firm presidents, our future innovators. And we need to keep them in the profession and encourage them. Inspire them. Empower them,” she said.

Miller is a partner with the firm of Cobb Cole, P.A., in Daytona Beach, where she focuses on commercial contract and tort disputes, insurance agent defense, and condo and homeowners’ association practice. In 2006, she graduated cum laude from the Stetson University College of Law. Her husband, Arthur “Chris” Miller, is a homicide prosecutor. Together, they have a 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

The young lawyer said her three main goals for the upcoming year will first begin with, “Educating and training young lawyers on the law and on lawyering as a profession.”

Second, she said, “Advocate. This board is going to advocate for young lawyers being hired, being trained, and for realizing that they are irreplaceable in our justice system. For loan forgiveness for careers in public service. And especially for the advancement of women and minorities in the profession. Our [2015 Young Lawyers Division Survey on Women in the Legal Profession]survey created a lot of buzz with its responses that 43 percent of young women lawyers had experienced bias or discrimination. We must work together to cut that number.”

Third, she continued, “Serve. Our board is going to be a model of service for young lawyers. Community service and especially pro bono legal service because if young lawyers serve where they are needed, and where they feel passionate, then we will all have a better legal system.”

The new leader said she was “amazed at all the things this board has accomplished,” in the past year and that there is “more on deck” for the coming year.

“There’s so much that could be shared, but let me mention just one more, one of the things I’m most proud of,” she said. “Board members surveyed young women lawyers and when the results showed pervasive bias against women attorneys and dissatisfaction among young women attorneys, the board created programming to start addressing the problem.”

Miller thanked all judges, and particularly the Florida Supreme Court justices, for having invested a “tremendous amount of time” in teaching and training young lawyers and students of law.

She said in the past year, the YLD board members have put on seven basic skills CLE courses and 21 practicing with professionalism courses.

“Board members have prepared to offer practicing with professionalism online for the first time next year. This year, we hosted over a dozen online webinars. We have given away almost $100,000 to local young lawyer groups through our Affiliate Outreach Conference and our other grant programs,” she said.

“Board members have worked on loan forgiveness for government attorneys and promoted mentoring. We created a YLD blog as well as a brand new website for lawyers hanging out their shingle, startmyfloridalawfirm.org. We hosted our award-winning diversity symposium in locations throughout the state. Our law student division and our leaders have been working with the students, faculty, and deans at each of Florida’s 12 law schools.”

Miller added, “I love this impressive YLD board. I am both honored and humbled just to get to be a part of this team.”

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