Leadership Academy provides many benefits
Many people think of the Wm. Reece Smith, Jr., Leadership Academy, as a group of vibrant, talented lawyers participating in a program designed to enhance their leadership skills. The Bar’s Leadership Academy is certainly that, but also much more. Most attorneys do not realize that the Leadership Academy provides tangible benefits that Bar members can use in conjunction with their local voluntary bar associations and community organizations.
The Leadership Academy Committee is The Florida Bar standing committee tasked with reviewing applications, selecting lawyers to participate in the Leadership Academy, and evaluating the training offered during the academy year.
Since its inception, the Leadership Academy has encouraged its fellows to develop various projects related to current issues or initiatives within The Florida Bar. In the past, these projects were primarily theoretical to help the fellows develop their own leadership skills. With this year’s class, all the programs will be available through the Bar’s Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism in tool kits designed for replication across the state.
It was the staff of the Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism that suggested making the Class IV projects widely accessible by using a format the center had in place, explaining that, “the Center for Professionalism awards the Group Professionalism Award to a bar association, law school group, inn of court, or judicial organization that has enhanced professionalism among lawyers and students.”
turning the Class IV projects into a “program tool kit,” and making the tool kit available for review or download on the Center for Professionalism’s website, members of The Florida Bar will benefit from the efforts of the fellows and the Leadership Academy will get a sense of the usefulness of the projects.
Many lawyers value service to their communities and their local bars. At some point in their careers, most lawyers have had the individual or group responsibility of developing or identifying a program in support of an event. It is usually when the deadline is near that a significant number of attorneys experience temporary, creative paralysis. The Class IV projects can be used as a resource of programs that may spark an idea tailored to the needs of a local bar or community. Moreover, the projects can be adjusted and used as the program in support of the event itself.
The Professionalism Center’s proposal was quickly accepted by Leadership Academy Chair Juliet Murphy Roulhac, a former member of The Florida Bar Board of Governors. Roulhac placed Vice Chair Melanie S. Griffin of Tampa in charge of gathering the project topics, setting the teams of fellows, and coordinating the projects.
The projects cover a wide array of topics, including:
• Technological Competency;
• Social Media Competency;
• Professionalism as a Survival Strategy;
• Mentoring & Reverse Mentoring;
• Mental Health;
• Lawyer Referral Services (Qualified Service Providers and Other Challenges to the Future Practice of Law);
• Financial Competence & Compliance with Bar Rules; and
• Diversity and Inclusion.
That the projects will now be accessible to members meets one of the goals of several Leadership Academy fellows.
“I hope that our group project will be used by law firms and voluntary bar associations to assist them with their diversity and inclusion goals, and to better understand issues relating to diversity and inclusion,” said Bernice Lee of Shraiberg, Ferrara, & Landau in Boca Raton, and a member of the Class IV team working on diversity and inclusion.
Jillene Doolkadir of Doolkadir Law in Coral Springs — who is a part of the group addressing social media competency — said she hopes lawyers who struggle with, or are intimidated by, integrating social media into their practices use the project as a go-to resource.
“We want to make the information we share via our project straight to-the-point and as useful and convenient as possible,” Doolkadir said. “That way the practitioner can get bits of reliable information quickly and then get back to work.”
The Class IV Projects will be available for use shortly after the fellows graduate at the 2017 Annual Florida Bar Convention in June.
Applications for Class V of the Leadership Academy are available online.
