Florida Bar Journal

Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes: President of The Florida Bar

Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes seems to have been destined for success. With a natural confidence that puts others at ease, she emanates a calm, decisive energy that feels innate.

When asked about her first name, she offers a lighthearted response. She and her sister are both named after their mother, which is why they go by their middle names. “There’s only one ‘Roz’ who runs the show in this household — and it’s not us,” she jokes.

Sia, counterintuitively pronounced “Say-ah” (not “seeya,” or “sigh-ah”), is an apropos name considering her giftedness as a speaker, as well as a subtle signal to be careful with assumptions. The meaning of her name, according to her father, is “first female,” as she was the “first female child born to Rosalyn in the family of Baker.” A natural sense of orderliness and practicality seems to have been endowed along with the name.

Affable and charismatic, voluble and down-to-earth, she is, above all, intentional. President Baker-Barnes is altogether clear on her purpose and agenda, focused on ensuring the growth and sustainability of the legal profession while nurturing those who enter it, especially the next generation of lawyers.

As the first Black woman president of The Florida Bar, Baker-Barnes is no stranger to breaking barriers. She was also the first Black woman president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association. With these distinctions, along with decades of prominent courtroom successes, she is well accustomed to the scrutiny that comes with being in the public eye. Sharing her life story comes as naturally to her as any courtroom argument.

Exceeding hundreds of cases and well over $100 million awarded to clients in favorable judgments over the past 25 years, a partner at Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart & Shipley in West Palm Beach for more than a decade, board certified as a civil trial lawyer, with a landmark verdict for her client upheld by the Florida Supreme Court, and having co-founded the Palm Beach County Sheree Davis Cunningham Black Women Lawyer’s Association, Baker-Barnes’ success record is impressive by any measure, and she has earned the respect and admiration of her colleagues.

U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, who now serves in Florida’s Southern District, was a state judge in the 15th Circuit when she presided over a tobacco case that was a career turning point for Baker-Barnes, who handled the damages testimony. Judge Rosenberg was impressed by the young attorney and the two have become friends over the years.

“She is a remarkable woman. She encompasses everything that I perceive to be success in one’s life, and I don’t mean that just in the singular sense of her professional accomplishments, which are tremendous in all regards, including as Florida Bar president, but what she’s achieved in her career at the law firm,” Judge Rosenberg said.

“I also have witnessed how she is as a human being — the causes and organizations that she devotes herself to.

“She’s a mother of three and each and every time we see each other, we talk about that. It brings a big smile to our faces, and we talk about the rewards and challenges of balancing parenting with a career. And then I’ve seen her with her immediate family — with her parents, with her siblings — and so, I see values in somebody that, to me, makes for a really special person. I think she has the full package,” Rosenberg said.

Judge Sheree Davis Cunningham (retired), the first Black woman to be appointed a judge in the 15th Judicial Circuit, has known Baker-Barnes “literally all her life” because of Judge Cunningham’s friendship with Rosalyn Baker, her mother.

“She’s well prepared, and that’s the key to Sia’s success,” said Judge Cunningham. “She knows how to roll up her sleeves and get a job done and when she’s working, she’s working from her heart. She has worked hard on behalf of The Florida Bar and she’s only going to elevate The Florida Bar higher because she cares about people, she cares about the organization, and she cares about our state and our legal community. Sia…encourages people to work. That’s how we make it better, by working. I’ve seen it before, and I know they will see it in The Florida Bar.”

Christian Searcy, president and CEO of Searcy Denney, has known Baker-Barnes since she was a young girl and shares a deep bond with her. He recalls a memorable moment from her father’s judicial investiture that stands out.

“There were a bunch of lawyers and judges — professional speakers that had spoken all their lives. Sia, at the time, was 13 years old and she got up and gave a talk about her dad that blew them all away,” he said, laughing. “All [those] professional speakers [were] up there saying wonderful things about Moses — none of them could hold a candle to Sia. So, at that point when she was 13 years old, I made a mental note: If she becomes a lawyer, I’m going to hire her.”

Searcy was as good as his word. Over the past two-and-a-half decades, he and Baker-Barnes have worked together on at least 40 cases, by his count, for children who were brain-injured at birth. He estimated that at least 20 of those resulted in multimillion-dollar awards.

“She does such a good job of working the cases up that most end up settling right before we get to trial,” he said.

“We handle difficult cases — medical negligence, product liability — the most difficult forms of civil litigation, and she has done it very well while raising three children, while being president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association and on the Board of Governors.”

Jack Scarola, a shareholder at Searcy Denney, has also worked on cases with Baker-Barnes for the past 25 years.

Scarola highlights a recent case against the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office as a prime example of Baker-Barnes’ legal talent.

“A young man was tasered off a roof and, as a consequence, was totally paralyzed and remains in a completely paralyzed condition. It is an irreversible, total paralysis. Because it was a case against the sheriff’s office, we were facing sovereign immunity limitations and clearly the $300,000 limits that would be imposed on a recovery under that circumstance were grossly inadequate to even begin to meet the out-of-pocket cost of caring for this young man for the balance of his life.

“Sia set her mind to overcoming those limitations and did an incredible job in putting together a federal civil rights violation claim — which is not an easy task by any means, under the current state of the law — and was able to resolve on remarkably beneficial terms for that young man,” he said.

Scarola and Baker-Barnes’ father, retired 15th Circuit Judge Moses Baker, Jr., worked side-by-side at the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office, until Scarola left for private practice and later convinced Baker to join him. Scarola and Baker worked together at Searcy Denney for another decade, and Scarola would often see the teenaged future Bar president in the office after high school classes were done for the day, working for her father.

“And now I have the great pleasure of working closely with her,” said Scarola.

Presidential Priorities

President Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes is excited her term coincides with a major milestone for The Florida Bar — its 75th anniversary.

“Our convention is going to be focusing on how we have shined so brightly as a Bar and as a profession over the past 75 years. But we want to focus not just on our great legacy and great history, but what the future holds, enhancing the growth of our profession. We’re going to be celebrating our 75th all year long,” she said.

As president of The Florida Bar, she says her primary responsibility is to serve all members.

“You are the face of the organization and your job, your role, is really less about fame and glory for you individually, and more about being an ambassador for the organization, providing exposure, using the resources and tools that you have at your disposal to make the practice better, to provide support to our lawyers, to give back to the community, to be a good servant,” Baker-Barnes said.

“Our primary mission is the regulation of the practice of law — of being sure that our lawyers are meeting the very highest ethical and professional standards, and that includes our responsibility and roles with professionalism, with ethics, with discipline,” says Baker-Barnes. “Those are always No. 1.”

If you’re going to have lawyers that are ethical, professional, good lawyers that provide the highest level of service to their clients, Baker-Barnes said, they must be equipped with the necessary tools.

Therefore, a top priority of her administration will be supporting attorneys through the work of the Special Committee on the Sustainability Initiative for Attorneys. Sustainability in legal practice encompasses consideration of what impacts the profession, how a lawyer practices, how law firms operate and advise clients, and how we practice law. The committee will develop recommendations for policies, programs, and resources that address the challenges attorneys face, giving Florida lawyers additional support and tools to help navigate areas that they may not have experience in or training for, she said.

“Law school is great, but it doesn’t teach you how to practice law; it doesn’t teach you how to sit across from a client that just lost their child and how to talk to that person and help them. It doesn’t teach you how to deal with a difficult opposing counsel that is belittling you, that’s treating you like you don’t know what you’re doing, that’s being very disruptive.

“As a young lawyer, I was handling pretty serious cases where I would come in and I’d be the only woman in the room and all of the lawyers were older than me by 20, 30, 40 years,” said Baker-Barnes. “There would be 10 lawyers in the room, and me. How do you deal with that? Nobody teaches you how to be ready for that.”

Baker-Barnes said lawyers must learn how to deal with the resistant witness and disruptive lawyers, and still be able to do their job.

“That can be very intimidating, very frightening, and you have to perform under those circumstances,” she said.

“I had to learn that through life experience and watching other lawyers and learning from people like Judge Cunningham and Judge Rosenberg,” she said. “They’d say, essentially, ‘You just have to block out the noise like none of that stuff is even occurring. You come in, you’re prepared, you know what you came to do, you have your plan, and you do not let anyone disrupt that plan.’

“If you have a disruptive defense lawyer, you simply say, ‘Thank you. I heard you,’ and you get right back to your question. If you have a resistant witness, you keep asking until you get the answer that you want, and if they’re not complying with the rules, you go to the judge. If a lawyer tells you, ‘What kind of question is that?’ You just turn to the witness and say, ‘Do you understand my question?’ Because it’s not about [opposing counsel], it’s about the witness.”

It can be disheartening for an attorney to be in the middle of a case and not know how to neutralize disruptions meant to dislodge one’s composure and focus. Even experienced lawyers can have their confidence shaken, and that’s something Baker-Barnes has great sympathy for, recalling her own reluctance to take the lead in the courtroom during the early years of her career, more than two decades ago.

“A lot of people go into that kind of experience three or four times, and they say, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t know if being a lawyer is for me.’ And it’s not because they don’t have the tools or the skills to do it, but they don’t have the training. They don’t have the guidance. They don’t have the mentorship to help them navigate those situations.”

The business side of practicing law is also an aspect of the profession ripe with training opportunities.

“There’s a business side to being a lawyer and it’s huge and it’s important and it can make or break whether you make partner, whether you’re on the executive committee, whether you’re in the leadership of your law firm,” she said. “If you go in and you have no idea that those are the real rules, it’s going to be very difficult. You might find yourself five, six, seven, eight years out, just starting to realize that and saying, ‘OK, it’s too late. I’m done.’”

Baker-Barnes holds young lawyers in high regard and understands their challenges.

“I believe the Bar already does a great job supporting attorneys with learning opportunities, but there’s always room for improvement,” she said.

For newer lawyers, the focus is on helping them transition from law school to practice and from early employment to long-term success, through training, guidance, and mentorship.

Former Palm Beach County Bar Association President Grasford Smith, who has been friends with Baker-Barnes since 2008, said: “I’ve been involved with The Florida Bar Mentorship Committee, and I think there is a clear gap [between] the experienced lawyers and the newer lawyers coming in. The Florida Bar is trying to bridge that gap. Over the years, I’ve observed Sia play that role for lawyers — and, perhaps in particular, women. Obviously, I believe there are unique challenges for women in the profession, and I think Sia has been able to navigate those challenges well. I think she has done a very nice job in mentoring, in general.”

Baker-Barnes views mentorship as an especially important opportunity to learn practical skills, as she did from her many mentors and senior colleagues. Whether it comes as formal feedback, like the grade Greg Barnhart would write on his notepad and tilt for her to see when she would return to the counsel’s table in the courtroom, or from casual conversation with seasoned professionals whose approaches and perspectives uncovered effective tools and techniques, mentoring strengthens one’s armor for a career in the law.

“My first several years in the profession could have very easily resulted in me saying, ‘I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I’m not going to do this, and I’m going to go in another direction,’ and that would have been a mistake for me,” says Baker-Barnes. “But I definitely could have very easily ended up down that route if I didn’t have the mentors that I had, if I didn’t have the support that I had, if I didn’t have people willing to help me.”

Darryl Lewis was one of her early mentors at Searcy Denney.

“Darryl really saved me in this profession because he pushed me,” said Baker-Barnes. “He saw me not advancing within the firm and came in one day and said, ‘You’re going to court with me.’”

Lewis would take her to mediation and bring her into the courtroom for trials to give Baker-Barnes the opportunity to gain more professional exposure.

“You need people like that, who are willing to invest in you, take a chance on you, see your talent and skill, and are willing to help you cultivate it and grow. And when you fail — and you will — they are willing to pick you up, help you fix it, and ensure you do better next time. And that was Darryl, for sure, for me.”

Lewis described Baker-Barnes as “head and shoulders above her contemporaries,” brilliant, energetic, organized, dependable, a quick thinker, always meticulously prepared, well-informed and well-read, tireless, and showing keen judgment.

Natasha Dorcent, Baker-Barnes’ mentee through the Palm Beach County Sheree Davis Cunningham Black Women Lawyer’s Association, was nervous but thrilled when she learned the future Bar president was to be her mentor. In 2022, Baker-Barnes was the guest speaker when Dorcent became a member of the Bar. Dorcent says Baker-Barnes engages generously with her, sharing her expertise and experience.

“I asked her, ‘How do you accomplish everything and how do you have that balance?’ And she said, ‘it’s not really balanced. It’s about blending. There will be days where you have to put more into family and some days that you have to put more into your profession.’ …She gave me this acronym that I live by now: PPE — plan, prepare, and execute. That’s something that I definitely try to do, especially if I’m nervous about anything. I need to plan for it, I need to prepare for it, and then I need to execute it. It’s helped with case preparation; it’s allowed me to get some major settlements for my clients and achieve successful results. I’ve even passed it on to a few of my other colleagues. It’s simple advice, but it works. I think she is going to be a fabulous president,” said Dorcent.

Corporate Counsel

Even though Baker-Barnes was unopposed in her campaign for president, she still traveled the state on a listening tour. She wanted to understand the challenges facing lawyers from many perspectives and consider how best the Bar could address them.

That feedback revealed the need for the Bar to focus more on engagement with in-house corporate counsel. In December 2024, the Board of Governors voted to create a new standing committee, the Corporate Counsel Committee, with a corporate counsel summit planned for the Annual Florida Bar Convention in June, and other events to follow throughout the year.

In addition to continuing to support the work being done by the Young Lawyers Division and the Board of Governors to reach law professors, college professors who are lawyers, and law students, Baker-Barnes also sees government lawyers as an important part of the legal community and is committed to finding more ways for the Bar to engage and support them through its Member Outreach Committee.

Making a Difference: ‘It’s a Powerful, Meaningful Thing’

President Baker-Barnes says it is necessary for lawyers to take the time to appreciate and find value in what they accomplish for their clients.

“We’re losing good lawyers,” Baker-Barnes says, not because they don’t know how to practice, but because they’re not finding fulfillment in the profession.

She explains that this crucial step often gets overlooked due to the fast pace and demanding work culture, which immediately shifts the focus to the next client, ultimately taking a toll on lawyers. While remuneration is important, another key element of a sustainable legal career is the sense of fulfillment that comes from helping others and making a positive impact in their lives.

“I have clients with young children that are told, ‘Your child will never walk. They’re never going to talk. They’re never going to play. They’re never going to run. They’ll never get to graduate high school.’ They get a list of ‘nevers’ because something terribly bad has happened,” she said.

Lawyers accept a great responsibility to put their clients in a better position, a goal that can take years to accomplish. In that process, attorneys become close with their clients. “They become like family,” she said.

“I have had clients who, by the time I finished their case, they have now gotten access to the best medical care. They now have the ability to participate in frontline research studies designed to test the limits of what someone previously may have thought a brain-injured child or a paralyzed child could never do.”

She talked about a client she had more than 15 years ago.

“I had one client in particular who went all the way out to the Children’s Hospital in Seattle for a cutting-edge study, and she came back walking after she had been told that she would never, ever walk. Every year, I get pictures at Christmas time. I get the school pictures every year. I got a card about how she’s doing in school. I’ve sometimes gotten videos of her playing,” she said.

“That’s the power that we have as lawyers. It wasn’t me that made her [able to] walk. That was her physician and that team and her incredibly dedicated mother... But as the lawyer, I got to play a small role in making a difference for that family.

“And that is the opportunity that we have as lawyers. No matter what your practice area is, no matter what role you’re in. It’s a powerful, meaningful thing.”

Bar Service

“The thing that I thought was most important about the Board is that we bring together people from all different parts of the state. We have a very diverse state,” said Dori Foster Morales, 2020-2021 Bar president. “Sia just has that really nice leadership skill of helping to bring people together…. What leaders can really do is make you feel good about the organization they’re leading; they’re positive, there is forward movement, there’s an openness to all sorts of alternative ideas and competing interests and a willingness to listen…Sia has all of those qualities.”

Former Board member Jay Kim worked closely with Baker-Barnes as co-chairs of the Special Committee on Changes to the Practice of Law, initially called the COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Task Force. Kim discussed their work in the 2021-2022 Bar year, where they focused on creating an online platform for fully litigating small civil claims. This was a groundbreaking project with no prior framework, so they began from scratch, incorporating input from the legal community, court systems, and technology professionals. Together, they divided the tasks and produced a comprehensive report for the Board of Governors.

Kim praised Baker-Barnes’ leadership, noting her ability to handle the project’s challenges, including sensitive and controversial issues, with creativity and diplomacy. From coordinating resources to finding solutions, Kim observed Baker-Barnes’ effective leadership from a supportive role and was impressed by her work throughout the project.

Attorney Edrick Barnes, President Baker-Barnes’ husband, said, “My wife has been involved in the Bar and in local bar leadership for a long time, so I’ve gotten an opportunity to see what she does firsthand…. When people are trying to choose leadership, they want to know whether or not they made the right choice. I can unequivocally say they got it right.”

Not a Lawyer

President Baker-Barnes is a second-generation attorney, but it wasn’t her first career choice.

When her father was an attorney at Searcy Denney in West Palm Beach, Baker-Barnes was a student at Cardinal Newman High School. Baker’s office was directly across the street from her school, so he would drop his eldest daughter off in the morning, and in the afternoon, she would walk across the street to his office where she would organize documents, make photocopies, and file documents.

“Through that experience, I met the law clerks who were in law school; I saw how the lawyers operated, I saw how a law firm operated. I understood a little bit more what that environment was like because I was in it every day after school,” Baker-Barnes said.

She remembers seeing clients in passing and noticing that they were usually stressed, upset, or crying, and the pressure on the lawyers was obvious. As a teenager she thought, “I’m never going to be a lawyer. I’m never going to do this! These people are intense. Too intense! I don’t want to be that intense. A law firm is a stressful environment.”

She wanted to do something more fun with her career. She and her father share a love of football, so she had decided to become a sports reporter. She majored in Communications at Florida State University, interning at a Tallahassee TV station, WTXL, in the sports department and working at a local newspaper, The Tallahasseean, where she was a jack-of-all-trades, writing articles, selling ads, helping with layout, and taking out the trash. She said the experiences taught her people skills.

As an undergrad, Baker-Barnes scored a prized internship in Gov. Lawton Chiles’ press office, where she benefitted from exposure to the legislative process and to the celebrated politician, whom she helped to prepare for his local, state, and national appearances.

“[Gov. Chiles] knew everybody by first name,” Baker-Barnes said. “It didn’t matter if you were the janitor or worked in the cafeteria. He spoke to everyone. He knew about their families, their children. He would ask, ‘How’s Johnny doing? Did he win the baseball game?’ I don’t know how he did that as the governor, but he did, and it taught me that you treat everybody with respect. You don’t base how you treat people on their role or their title.”

As graduation grew closer, she began to question her chosen field. She was dissatisfied with the opportunities she was being offered; the dream job she had envisioned as a sports reporter simply wasn’t materializing.

“I enjoyed reporting. I enjoyed standups and talking and writing and speaking, but there was still something missing for me, and I didn’t know what that was,” she said, “and that’s how I ended up going to law school.”

Baker-Barnes took the LSAT at her parents’ suggestion, scored well, and was accepted to the FSU College of Law where she was awarded the prestigious three-year Virgil Hawkins Fellowship for academic achievement. Serendipitously, Baker-Barnes encountered an administrator who was deeply committed to the law students’ success.

“Ruth Witherspoon was one of the assistant deans at Florida State at the time,” recalls Baker-Barnes. “She really had a great connection with the incoming students, and she would meet with everyone individually. She impressed on us the importance of having a strong presence at the law school.”

“There was a lot of pressure that came with that because we were told that we were all smart, talented, we all had great grades. But Dean Witherspoon said, ‘I don’t want you to just come here and be a student and graduate and go on with your life. I want you to make your mark here, wherever that is, whether it’s in student government or law review or mock trial or moot court or whatever –– find what you’re passionate about and go for it.’”

Baker-Barnes said she wasn’t sure, at first, if law school was a good idea. But in attending those brutal first-year law classes, she found she enjoyed the hard work. Mindful of Dean Witherspoon’s advice to find something she was passionate about, she tried out for the moot court team and quickly found it was a good fit, triggering her competitive spirit.

“When I would get up and argue, I was nervous, but I was nervous-excited. And that’s how I feel any time I’m getting ready to give an argument in court or give an opening statement at trial or start mediation or give a speech. I’m always nervous-excited. I really want to do well, but there’s also that excitement. I want to do it. I can’t wait for that feeling of when I go, and I do it, and I do a good job, and I feel good after it. That’s nervous excitement — and [moot court was] the first time I remember feeling that way.”

That first year of law school, Baker-Barnes applied and advanced through a field of more than 100 students to a spot on the moot court final four team, winning the elimination rounds to compete in front of the Florida Supreme Court.

“We argued at the Supreme Court my first year of law school before a packed house. My parents were there, my siblings were there, and I remember sitting at the counsel table of the Florida Supreme Court as a first-year law student feeling nervous-excited. I couldn’t wait to get up there and present my argument.”

Baker-Barnes stood before the justices without a single note in her hands as she responded to their questions. This was highly unusual.

“I knew my arguments and my case cold,” she said. “I was peppered with questions, and I handled them. And I came out thinking, ‘Okay, I won that!’”

“I didn’t win,” she says with a chuckle.

After the competition, Justice Barbara Pariente told Baker-Barnes the scores were very close, but the reason she didn’t win was because she was destined to be a trial lawyer who belonged in the courtroom, not arguing appellate issues.

Justice Pariente’s encouragement to seek a career as a trial lawyer stuck.

Baker-Barnes received a flood of offers from big firms, but she chose to go home and clerk for Searcy Denney during summer breaks. After her second summer, the firm offered her a job. Since graduating in 2000, she has worked at Searcy Denney — the same firm where her father once worked, and where she once worked as a clerk and filed documents after high school — in an office just across the street from her high school alma mater.

Leadership Path

“If you would have asked me when I started law school, or even when I started practicing law, if I was going to be the president of The Florida Bar, I would have said, ‘Absolutely not. Are you kidding me?’ I’d never envisioned myself in this role. But life takes you in many different directions,” said Baker-Barnes.

Adam Rabin, a former president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association, would prove to be an inspiration, as well as a mentor and friend. Baker-Barnes credits Rabin for encouraging, prodding, and smoothing her transition into local and state Bar leadership.

She may not have envisioned herself as president, but Rabin had a vision for her.

In 2009, Rabin was in line to become president of the PBCBA when he and Baker-Barnes were seated next to each other during a roundtable he moderated at a summit presented by the PBCBA’s Standing Committee for Diversity, which he co-chaired.

“I was listening to her speak at this roundtable and I was absolutely just mesmerized at how well thought-out and pointed she was in helping to lead the conversation. I was like, ‘This person is impressive and she’s going places. We need to get her more involved.’”

He discovered she was already involved and had chaired a few committees for the PBCBA. With his encouragement, she ran for the PBCBA Board of Directors and won.

Back then, says Rabin, there were so few non-white attorneys in the PBCBA that there was a popular perception that it “wasn’t really necessarily a welcoming place in the legal community for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds to come to.”

“I just knew it from that moment that her trajectory was set, that she would end up being the first African American female bar president in the approximately 100 years of the Palm Beach County Bar history,” said Rabin.

President Baker-Barnes fulfilled his expectations and was elected to serve as PBCBA president for 2017-2018.

President Baker-Barnes said she was ready for a break from bar service after her term as PBCBA president. But in 2018, Rabin decided not to seek re-election to The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors and urged her to run for his seat.

She did, but not without a great deal of consideration.

“The big struggle for her was her family,” said Rabin. “She has three young kids. Was this another commitment that she could make?”

Ultimately, Baker-Barnes made the decision to answer the leadership call out of a sense of duty, with the full support of her family.

“You have the ability to give encouragement, to give that push to others, that Adam, Judge Cunningham, Judge Rosenberg, my law partners, my family, gave to me,” she said.

“I had to talk to my family…and my husband had literally zero hesitation, which I don’t know how he did that, because I think I would have even been like, ‘Really? Come on, now,’” said the president. “But he has always said that he never wanted to be a person that would hold his wife back…and so he said, ‘Sia, we have been doing this for many years now. We know how to do this. We’re a team. We’ve got this.’ With that, we were off to the races.”

Among Very Few

“Sia is a trailblazer,” said Michelle Suskauer, 2018-2019 Bar president.

“Her presidency is significant because she is the eighth woman in a very long history of The Florida Bar, in a male-dominated leadership position. Firstly, we hope to get to a point where we stop counting the number of women who are president of The Florida Bar, but we are not there. Women have to work significantly harder to not only maintain their position but excel, and we do, so that is significant.”

“Secondly, it is significant that she is the first African American woman to serve in this role. It was significant when Gene Pettis became the first African American man to serve in that role. It is something that we should celebrate that is completely overdue,” said Suskauer, adding, “There is no one who is more deserving to be Bar president.”

Baker-Barnes is accustomed to entering spaces where her mere presence breaks new ground. She was often the only, one of the first, or among very few Black women in her academic and professional environments. Her mother told how she was often the only Black child in her class from kindergarten to eighth grade at the Progressive School in West Palm Beach. Baker-Barnes related that she was the only Black girl in her classroom in elementary school, one of very few at Cardinal Newman High School, and according to FSU Institutional Research, she was one of only 17 Black women among the 231 students entering the FSU College of Law as first-year law students in 1997.

It wasn’t always easy, though, as her mother tells.

“In one situation in fourth grade, every kid was invited to another kid’s birthday party except for Sia, and they didn’t invite her because she is African American. When it was brought to the school’s attention, her classmates stood up for her. They loved Sia so much they said they weren’t going.”

Little Sia developed protective armor. “Unflappable” is how her husband, Edrick Barnes, describes her.

“She’s tough,” said Judge Baker.

Baker-Barnes, reflecting on her early career, said, “I remember as a young lawyer not seeing myself in some of the areas of growth and leadership that lawyers seek to attain. We didn’t have any female partners in my law firm when I started. Over the years, we’ve had a good number. We’ve seen more female presidents of The Florida Bar, even our local bars, but it has been slow progress,” she said.

“And I think the same falls true for the larger firms. You see a lot of [women] lawyers, but growth and development into leadership positions is still a struggle.”

By taking her rightful place in leadership, she set a positive precedent.

“As a woman trial lawyer, my experience has been that I’m often the only one in the room. And when I say often, I mean pretty much all the time. That has been, really, my experience throughout my career,” she said.

When Baker-Barnes started working at Searcy Denney 25 years ago, there was only one other woman lawyer in the firm. Therefore, when she and her husband decided to start their family, she had to create the maternity policy.

“I said, ‘I’m going to work. I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do. But I’m about to be a mom; this is what I need,’ and to their credit, they did it. They’ve been very, very supportive of me as a mom,” said Baker-Barnes.

She said if you find yourself in an environment where something has never been done, “you have to have the courage to carve out your own space.”

Former President Eugene Pettis (2013-2014) has known Baker-Barnes for over 20 years, and she views him as not only a friend, but a valued mentor.

“She’s a visionary,” said Pettis, adding he’s excited to watch the programs she rolls out.

“She’s a people person,” Pettis said. “She can bring together — and desires to bring together — everybody. In a Bar that’s as large as ours is and as diverse as it is, made up of a multitude of people from every demographic, every country, every race, every religion, it takes a certain person to make all of those individuals feel welcome and a part of the ‘big tent.’ I think that’s essential in this day and time for an effective presidency to have those abilities. And more than the ability, she has the desire to be that convener, to pull us together.”

Being a successful, experienced attorney with a well-established career brings a set of perspectives that allows Baker-Barnes to find and forge commonality.

“The Florida Bar is the organization where we represent all the lawyers, all backgrounds from all experiences. And there’s opportunity for everyone, which I think is important,” she says.

Foundation

Baker-Barnes, like all high achievers, seems to have been born with the gene for ambition.

“I’ve always felt that pressure to try to be the very best at whatever it is that I’m trying to accomplish. On the [firm’s] letterhead are listed all the lawyers in the firm, and in bold are the partners in the firm. If you’re board-certified in civil trial law, you have an asterisk next to your name on the letterhead. I always viewed that as a challenge, like ‘I’m not just here just to be a lawyer. I want my name in bold. I want that asterisk next to my name.’”

The drive for professional success is not new to Baker-Barnes; it has been a family trait for generations.

Both of her parents had careers of great responsibility, and when she was growing up, she had the advantage of watching them handle their careers in a dual-professional household. In addition to her father being a judge, her mother, Rosalyn Baker, was the Palm Beach circuit administrator for the Florida Department of Corrections.

The Bakers, both of whom are first-generation college graduates, met when they were 17 years old at Florida A&M University.

Her mother’s parents, originally from Cairo, Georgia, grew up in poverty. They settled in Tampa, where Baker-Barnes’ grandfather built a construction company from the ground up. Her maternal grandmother, who made it to the 11th grade, emphasized education for her own children, which reflected in the careers her mother and her mother’s siblings chose as adults. Her eldest maternal aunt became the first lawyer in the family, graduating from Georgetown Law. Her other aunt earned a Ph.D. and became a college professor, and her uncle worked for Lockheed Martin as a computer engineer. The home her grandfather built in Tampa is still owned by the family and is a point of pride.

Her father was born in a home that lacked indoor plumbing in Marianna and was raised in Dade City. He was sent to college by his mother, a woman of modest means who managed to get a third-grade education before she had to leave school to get a job. Determined to give her son a better future, she worked at a shrimp processing plant to cover his tuition. When Moses Baker, Jr., arrived on the Florida A&M University campus, he had one pair of shoes. Money was so thin that, at times, he couldn’t pay for boarding, so he stayed in the dormitory basement and focused on graduating as quickly as possible. After earning a four-year political science degree in three years, he earned a JD from the University of Florida College of Law in two years, becoming a lawyer in 1977. Unable to find a position in Tampa, where his wife’s family lived, he accepted a position as an assistant state attorney in the 15th Circuit, and the young family of three relocated to West Palm Beach.

Rosalyn Destinie Baker Sutton, President Baker-Barnes’ sister and also an attorney, had this to say about the remarkable achievements of her family: “My mother was raised in the housing projects in Tampa. . . on the mean streets. Her father owned a construction business. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, my grandmother, and they worked extremely hard, not just to send all of their children to college and obtain college degrees, but also they worked extremely hard through the construction business to move the family out of the housing projects and build a home that still remains in our family today in Tampa. So, you can definitely see how our family, in one generation, went from the housing projects [and] my father was born in a house that had no running water and no electricity, to become a judge in Palm Beach County, is obviously extremely remarkable.”

Work/Life Blend

Raising children as a trial lawyer is complicated. It took Baker-Barnes 12 years to make partner and 21 years to become board-certified. She said a couple of factors contributed to the long delay in making partner: her lack of confidence at the beginning of her career, and “being a mom, honestly. Between 2000 and 2012, I had two children.”

Her two eldest daughters, Selia and Emri, are now 17 and 13, respectively.

“I was still responsible for managing a caseload and going to trial, sometimes going out of town for weeks, and having to make sure that I had childcare and that my kids had what they needed.”

She recalled trying a case following the birth of her third child, son Edan, now 11.

“I went to trial for three weeks in Palm Beach County while I was nursing. I would have to pump at the courthouse. We did not have nursing rooms at the courthouse at the time, so one of my law partners would stand outside the door of our war room while I pumped. And then one of our runners at the office would come get my milk take it to the office, put it in the refrigerator, and then my babysitter would come by the office in the afternoon to pick up my milk. Then when I went home at night, I would nurse the baby and we would do the whole cycle all over again.”

“There’s no way I could have tried that case without a team, without my parents, without my husband, without my babysitter, without the runner who was getting my milk, without my law partner standing outside the door.”

Baker-Barnes said it was her mom, Judge Cunningham, and Judge Rosenberg, that taught her you can try cases and be a good mother.

“I learned to focus less on how many hours I was spending with my baby on this day and focus more on the quality of the time. Because there are times when your work schedule is going to be incredibly heavy and you’re going to see your children less that week. But there are also going to be times when your work schedule is light, so take advantage of that and spend more time with them.

“I learned that it’s less about work/life balance — because I don’t honestly believe there is such a thing — and more about work/life blend.”

Community

“I think that Sia believes that the role of lawyers is beyond just fighting the fight for our clients, but it’s also being an advocate in the community for those who are less fortunate than we are,” Pettis said. “And it’s not about the money. It’s about justice and what’s right. She’s a generational leader. I admire when Bar leaders are not just within our circle of the Bar, but go beyond and reach into the community to make it better. That’s how I describe Sia.”

When Baker-Barnes’ parents retired, they decided to start a Scouting troop through their church, Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in West Palm Beach. The troop has grown to have between 50-60 children participating, including the Bakers’ grandchildren.

“We have Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and we have — I think — seven Eagle Scouts that have come out of this troop,” Baker-Barnes said.

In January, Baker-Barnes, her mom, and Baker Sutton were among the adults escorting Girl Scouts on a trip to New York City. In all, 22 kids and their parents participated.

“The goal of the trip was exposure. Some of these children have never left Palm Beach County, so just being able to see a different city, a different way of life, can be very eye opening. We hit the major sights — they skated in Rockefeller Center and saw the Christmas tree — things that, you know, you don’t get to do here,” Baker-Barnes said.

Her sister offered her own perspective.

“The act of traveling outside of your neighborhood is such a great experience for young people, to inspire them in so many different ways — to see the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, to see the museums in New York,” said Baker Sutton.

Then she said something that Baker-Barnes hadn’t even hinted at.

“Sia actually sponsored that trip. She probably would never admit to that publicly. I’ll tell it because I’m her sister,” said Baker Sutton. “All the children that traveled, she covered those costs. And if there was anybody that needed help, she helped. She’s very quiet about that sort of thing, but she privately helps children in the community in that way. Not just donating her time, but donating her resources as well. Very quietly. I hope she won’t be mad at me for sharing that.”

Baker-Barnes’ abundant energy and a welcoming attitude toward hard work seems to have broadened her bandwidth for finding joy in non-stop activities. She and her circle of girlfriends, most of whom she has known for years, regularly meet up to socialize, getting together for dinner or going to a concert. She is “always cheering the loudest” for her three kids in their activities, says her mother. She loves sports and she and her father still watch football games together. There’s a constant buzz of visiting between cousins, aunts, uncles, and siblings. In addition to volunteering with the Scouts, she also volunteers with her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, The Links Incorporated, and Jack and Jill of America. She works out. She keeps her social media feeds updated. She even finds time to read for pleasure; she just finished the book, Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson, and recommends it.

Lisa Quarrie Duncan, who has known Baker-Barnes for decades, is in that friend circle. They became acquainted through their service on the F. Malcolm Cunningham, Sr., Bar Association in West Palm Beach.

“Her commitment and drive are unlike anything that I’ve seen from a lawyer. I think it’s extra special that she is a woman lawyer, and then a lawyer of color, because women have to balance so much, and she makes it look so seamless, so effortless,” said Quarrie Duncan. “I am amazed by the amount of ground that she covers and the amount of people that she touches and love that she shows.”

Laurie Briggs, a friend and colleague from Searcy Denney, describes Baker-Barnes as confident, bold, and extremely polished.

“I say all the time, and I have for years...Sia Baker-Barnes is going to be the governor of the state of Florida,” Briggs said, laughing. “I told her that for years; I tell her parents that. I just think she’s phenomenal…. I am not sure I have met someone more impressive in my life.”

Baker-Barnes’ story embodies the best definitions of success, family, community, and duty, blending her family life, community service, and professional leadership to the enrichment of all three, building on a framework started by earlier generations who, from humble beginnings and with great adversity, created hard-earned opportunity for their children.

“You’ve got to know your craft and you have to trust yourself,” she says.

Jay Kim said: “Here is the one piece of advice I would give to anyone who is about to have the pleasure of working with our future Bar president: Sia Baker-Barnes never comes unprepared, so you better be ready.”

“The best is yet to come,” said Judge Baker.

Practice Area
Florida Bar Board Certified in Civil Trial Law, Baker-Barnes has pursued justice for victims in personal injury, medical negligence, and product liability cases for 25 years and frequently lectures throughout the U.S. on catastrophic injury cases.

Education
• Florida State University College of Law, J.D. (2000)
○ Virgil Hawkins Fellow, Full Academic Achievement Scholarship
• Florida State University, B.A. in Communication (1996)

Work Experience
• Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A.
○ Executive Committee (2025-present; 2018-2020; 2014-2016)
○ Partner/Shareholder (2012-Present)
○ Associate (2000-2012)
○ Summer Law Clerk (1998, 1999)

Bar & Court Admissions
• U.S. Supreme Court (2019)
• U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (2005)
• U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (2001)
• The Florida Bar (2000)
○ Florida Bar Board Certified in Civil Trial Law (2021-Present)

Honors & Distinctions
• Florida Bar President’s Awards of Merit (2021, 2022, 2023)
• Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division Outstanding Woman Lawyer of Achievement Award (2023)
• Henry T. Latimer Diversity Award (2022)
• Florida Justice Association Beyond Excellence Award (2023)
• Palm Beach County FAWL Barbara Pariente Award (2021)
• Florida Anti-Defamation League’s Jurisprudence Award (2021)
• F. Malcolm Cunningham Sr. Bar’s Trailblazer Award (2024)
• South Palm Beach County FAWL Woman Lawyer of the Year Award (2024)
• Florida Justice Association’s BJ and Tom Masterson Professionalism Award (2024)
• National Bar Association Presidential Award (2007)
• Palm Beach Commission’s Mayor’s Proclamation, Heritage Honoree for Black History Month (2024)
• Palm Beach County Bar Association Judge Rodgers Diversity Award (2021)
• US News & World Report, Best Lawyers in America (2012-Present)
• Lawdragon Magazine, America’s 500 Leading Plaintiff’s Consumer Attorneys (2020-present)
• Florida Super Lawyers (2013-Present)
• Florida Trend, Legal Elite (2016, 2021)
• Daily Business Review, Top 20 Women in Law (2014)

Associations & Memberships
• The Florida Bar Board of Governors (2018-present)
○ Chair-Elect, Executive Committee (2024-Present)
○ Chair, Strategic Planning Committee (2024-Present)
○ Chair, Legislation Committee (2023-2024)
○ Chair, Program Evaluation Committee (2022-2023)
○ Co-Chair, COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Task Force (2021- 2022)
○ Co-Chair, Changes to the Practice of Law Committee (2022-2023)
○ Chair, Judicial Qualifications Selection Committee (2022)
○ Chair, Public Member Screening Committee (2024)
• The Florida Bar Trial Lawyers Section, Executive Council (2019-2024)
• Palm Beach County Sheree Davis Cunningham Black Women Lawyers Association, Co-Founder and Inaugural President (2021)
• Palm Beach County Bar Association, President (2017-2018)
○ Board of Directors (2011-2019)
• F. Malcolm Cunningham Sr. Bar Association
• Florida Association for Women Lawyers Palm Beach County Chapter, Board of Directors (2013-2017)
• Florida Justice Association, Board of Directors (2009-2011)
○ Chair, Young Lawyers Section (2008-2009)
• National Bar Association, Assistant General Counsel (2021-2022)
○ Virgil Hawkins Florida Chapter
• American Board of Trial Advocates (2020-Present)
• International Academy of Trial Lawyers (2025-present)
• International Society of Barristers (2021-Present)
• International Women’s Forum
• Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated
• The Links, Incorporated (Past President, West Palm Beach Chapter)
• Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated