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Bar panel reviews make-up of non-voting Board of Governors seats

Senior Editor Top Stories

Town Hall set for Winter Meeting in Orlando

Eugene PettisA special committee looking at the role of Bar Board of Governors non-voting members will be taking member comments at its February 7 meeting at the Bar’s Winter Meeting in Orlando.

The Special Committee on Non-Voting Appointments was set up by Bar President John Stewart in October and charged with reporting by the board’s March meeting.

The committee’s deliberations center around Standing Board Policy 1.20, which allows Bar presidents to name non-voting members to the board to ensure diverse representation from all parts of the Bar.

Committee chair and past Bar President Eugene Pettis said the committee is considering several options and hopes to get input on those at the February 7 meeting.

“These are ideas that have come up and we’re inviting people to come to the Town Hall Meeting to have their input on these ideas and the floor will be open for  other ideas that we may not have thought of,” Pettis said.

Here are some of the concepts the committee is studying, although Pettis said nothing has been decided:

• Ensuring the board reflects all sectors of the Bar so the Bar hears all interests and perspectives, which is embodied in Standing Board Policy 1.20. Ways to accomplish that include a periodic survey of the Board of Governors’ composition to look at the gender, race, ethnic makeup, practice-area diversity, and other factors. That last effort should recognize the importance of underrepresented practice areas perspectives being heard at the board and ways of improving public-sector representation on the board should be explored.

• While it’s important that statewide voluntary and specialty bars be represented on the board, there are also local and regional organizations that should be heard. To accomplish that, “We are trying to figure out a way to provide the president with the ability to rotate organizations from time to time based on the issues at hand and the needs and perspectives that will aid the [board] in discussing and deciding the business of the Bar,” Pettis said.

• A rotation schedule should be considered to enhance geographic and demographic diversity and appointments should be staggered so each president has a chance to make appointments, which could last for two years instead of the current one. An organization that is in a rotation schedule would be eligible for a future appointment after its representatives have been off the board for a full term.

“We want to make sure that we are utilizing this policy in a manner that brings to the Board of Governors an accurate representation of the Bar,” Pettis said. “We believe this is a dynamic process that needs to be looked at from time to time.”

Currently, the board has representatives from the Cuban American Bar Association, the Virgil Hawkins Florida Chapter of the National Bar Association, the Florida Association for Women Lawyers (traditionally the presidents of those organizations fill those seats), for government lawyers, and one judge each representing the statewide conferences of county and circuit court judges.

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