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Access commission begins business outreach project

Senior Editor Top Stories

A new program to educate business leaders about the civil legal needs of their employees and how to help meet those needs is being launched by the Supreme Court’s Commission on Access to Civil Justice.

Former Bar President Greg Coleman, vice chair of the commission, demonstrated, at the commission’s recent Tallahassee meeting, the final version of a presentation that commission members are being asked to deliver to business and related organizations on the importance of helping employees with their personal legal problems.

The focus, he said, is to help business leaders realize that assisting employees solve family, consumer, landlord/tenant, probate, and other legal challenges leads to less stress and more productive workers.

“This commission is the only one [of 38 or so access commissions across the country] that has decided to partner with businesses to educate and engage their employees so they understand and try to accomplish solutions so their employees can deal with family law issues and the stress that is associated with them,” Coleman said.

The prepared talk includes a script and PowerPoint slides with information on the difficulty moderate- and low-income families have in affording legal services for common legal problems and ways employers can help them with those problems, including sponsoring legal clinics.

Also covered are the availability of legal aid and alternatives such as the Florida Courts Help App prepared by the Office of the State Courts Administration under the commission’s auspices, the FloridaLawHelp.org website run by the Florida Justice Technology Center that is supported by The Florida Bar Foundation, and Florida Free Legal Answers a joint operation of the Bar and the ABA.

The presentation discusses the economic benefits of legal aid, including extra benefits won for Floridians and other economic multipliers.

Audience members will be asked to fill out evaluations, so further tweaks and improvements to the program may be made.

“I would ask that each commission member go out into your respective communities and give this presentation to a nonlawyer business group or nonlawyer association at least once before our September meeting,” Coleman said, adding he plans to make several appearances.

“Our hope is we’ll get out into our communities, give this presentation, get feedback from the audiences, and continue to revisit this and modify as we move forward,” he added. “Once we get out there and start doing it, I think we’ll find ourselves enjoying it so much we’ll be doing it as often as we can get around in our communities, because it really is an important education tool this commission can utilize.”

Coleman urged commission members to take the prepared script and alter it any way necessary, so they are comfortable delivering the talk. He credited OSCA, the commission’s Council of Business Partners, and the Bar’s Young Lawyers Division for help in developing the presentation.

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