Bar’s Committee on Professionalism subsumes the charge to the S.C. Commission on Professionalism and Civility
Bar leaders say they’re confident the recent disbanding of the Florida Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and Civility won’t slow a decades-long movement to promote the highest standards in the profession.
At a meeting of the Bar’s Standing Committee on Professionalism during the Bar’s Annual Convention in Boca Raton, outgoing Chair Starling Newcomb told committee members she was confident the work will continue.
“The mission of professionalism ultimately doesn’t change,” Newcomb said. “The role of the committee and how we’re going to continue to support that mission may be evolving with the disbanding of the commission, but fundamentally, the mission doesn’t change.”
The Supreme Court, in a March administrative order, said since its establishment, the Bar’s Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism “has grown in prominence and scope” until it has now subsumed the charge to the Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and Civility.
“The Court finds that the fundamental ideals of professionalism are being carried out by The Florida Bar and the Center to such an extent that the Commission may be discontinued without affecting the goals the Commission was established to achieve,” Chief Justice Charles Canady wrote. “Accordingly, the Florida Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and Civility is hereby concluded and dissolved.”
The movement in Florida traces its roots to ABA and Florida Bar membership surveys that cited “lack of professionalism” and “lack of ethics” as chief complaints among lawyers. In 1996, at the Bar’s request, the Supreme Court issued an order creating the Commission on Professionalism to oversee the Florida Bar Center for Professionalism (renamed the Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism in 2005.)
Working with the commission and the standing committee, the center’s primary mission is to “promote the fundamental ideals and values of the justice system within the legal system, and to instill those ideals of character, civility, competence, and commitment in all those persons serving therein.”
In 2013, former Justice Fred Lewis issued an opinion, “Code for Resolving Professionalism Complaints,” that required each of the state’s 20 judicial circuits to create local professionalism panels, “to receive, screen and act upon any and all complaints of unprofessional conduct and to resolve those complaints informally, if possible.”
The idea was to correct, rather than punish, rude or disruptive behavior that reflects poorly on the profession but doesn’t rise to the level of a formal complaint under the Rules of Professional Conduct.
At the Annual Convention in 2018, Lewis, now retired, said the panels, which were given the latitude to reflect regional standards, appeared to be working.
“I think it’s going in the right direction,” Lewis said. “It’s like anything else, it takes a while to smooth out the rough edges and it’s not perfected by any means.”
One of the biggest problems, Lewis noted, was getting the word out that the panels exist.
In South Florida, the 11th, 17th, and 19th circuits adopted a uniform “Standards of Professional Courtesy and Civility,” following two years of negotiation by the South Florida Joint Civility Project, an effort that involved 44 voluntary bar associations.
Project organizers said at the time that the standards oblige all lawyers to make a reasonable attempt to clear deposition and hearing dates with opposing counsel before setting them, provide copies of all materials to opposing counsel that are submitted to the court, treat judicial staff civilly and with respect, and not make “legal or factual arguments in correspondence to the court,” among other things.
The professionalism panels had been reporting their activities to the commission, and a new organizational structure will have to be worked out, Starling said.
Starling, who serves on a professionalism panel in the 20th Circuit, wants the panels to continue working.
“I perceive that they should,” she said. “I think it’s important that professionalism has that level of visibility within the circuits because not only is that something that is coming from the top down, but it’s also coming from the bottom up.”
Latimer Center for Professionalism Director Rebecca Bandy 
said she has been receiving emails from Bar members about the commission. But she assured standing committee members that little will change, for now.
“The panels are going to continue,” she said, adding, “that part we’ll have to look at down the road, but in terms of the everyday promoting of professionalism, we have that covered and we’ll continue doing our best work.”
