Corporate counsel get a seat at the table in new Bar Initiative
'I think it’s a good opportunity to touch a group of people that maybe The Florida Bar hasn’t paid attention to as much as they should in the past'
Danielle Anders
Brightline Assistant General Counsel Danielle Anders doesn’t get to sway many juries, and she doesn’t mind.
She gets a rush of job satisfaction every time she boards a high-speed train in Boca for her daily commute to Miami.
“Working for a company like Brightline, I get to see my work in motion,” she says. “I feel like I’m part of something larger.”
The nation’s only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad is changing the way Floridians live and work, and Anders is proud that her legal skills are helping shape Florida’s future.
So, when Florida Bar President-elect Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes recruited her for a new “Florida Bar Standing Committee for Corporate Counsel,” she was all in.
Anders is hoping to connect with peers — and better connect the Bar with a legal community that helped make Florida the No. 1 state for corporate relocations in 2023, according to the latest Securities and Exchange Commission figures.
“I think it’s a good opportunity to touch a group of people that maybe The Florida Bar hasn’t paid attention to as much as they should in the past,” Anders said. “Especially in South Florida, here in Miami, you see so many young people moving here, particularly corporate in-house counsel.”
Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes
Giving corporate and in-house counsel an opportunity to collaborate with each other — and a forum to share their ideas and perspective with the rest of the Bar — is what the initiative is all about, says Baker-Barnes, a board-certified civil trial lawyer from West Palm Beach.
Baker-Barnes says the initiative grew out of discussions with friends, supporters, and attorneys she met while making appearances across the state.
“I think hearing from corporate counsel, from close friends of mine that work in this area, there is sort of this trend of them saying, ‘there’s not really a place for us at the Bar, where we can collaborate with one another, learn from one another, build relationships with one another, and learn about emerging trends,’” she says.
Baker-Barnes moved quickly to put the project in motion. The Board of Governors approved the committee in December. It is expected to hold an inaugural meeting in May, not long before she takes the oath of office at the Annual Convention June 25-28 in Boca Raton.
A leadership team is in place and the committee, so far, has 15 members. Baker-Barnes continues to recruit, with a goal of getting the widest possible representation of Florida’s corporate culture.
Caldera Medical, Sprit Airlines, the Breakers Hotel, Fresh Del Monte, Airbnb, Citi Bank, and Universal Property & Casualty are on board.
“Food, transportation, construction, banking, we’re hoping to get a representative from the sports industry,” she said. “So, we’re trying to touch so many of the industries that we have here in the state and provide some exposure for the lawyers and the companies they represent.”
Figures show that corporate and in-house counsels occupy a space that is primed for growth.
Typically, about 65% of Florida Bar members are solo and small-firm practitioners. The last three Florida Bar Membership Surveys (2019, 2021, and 2024,) show that corporate counsels comprise just 6%. That could easily change.
The Florida Bar, with 113,000 members, experienced a 17% increase in active resident lawyers over the past decade, the fastest in the nation, according to a 2024 ABA publication.
The latest SEC figures show that in the first quarter of 2024 alone, more than 100,000 new businesses were started in Florida.
Corporate counsels have served over the years on various committees and sections, but lawyers who work in the space tend to be “siloed,” Baker-Barnes says.
“You’re not going to see them in the courtroom, they’re not typically at networking receptions, because that’s really just not their lane,” she says. “They are involved in corporate counsel organizations, but again, where is the place for them in the Bar?”
Manuel Farach
West Palm Beach business litigator Manny Farach, who serves on the Board of Governors, also chairs the Business Law Section. He couldn’t agree more.
As a vice-chair of the new committee, Farach sees himself as a bridge between the section and corporate counsels, who he says operate in a very different world.
“The demands upon them as corporate counsels are completely different, they serve one client, their focus is a pure business aspect, which, from my perspective is wonderful.”
Florida’s corporate image is no longer limited to the holy trinity of real estate, agriculture, and tourism, Farach said.
“We’re actually starting to get a true corporate community, and President-elect Baker-Barnes’ perspective here is truly fantastic,” he said. “It gives the corporate community the ability to reach outside of their little bubble and do those things that not only give them some professional fulfillment, but also assist their clients.”
The committee chair, Universal Property & Casualty General Counsel for Operations Michel Morgan, has been a close friend of Baker-Barnes for years.
Morgan says committee members will learn from each other, and the Bar will offer a new level of programming.
“I can tell you, for someone who has been relatively active with the Bar, I have typically felt left out when I attend Bar events, because there’s hardly any in-house counsel who attend,” she says. “And the programming is not usually very relevant to my everyday experience.”
The committee will develop CLEs and programming that will have to cover a lot of ground, given the diverse challenges a general counsel can face in a single day.
Michel Morgan
Morgan oversees a legal department, which at times has had legal staff of well over 300, and “there is rarely a day that goes as planned,” she says. “Last night, I was having a challenge with handling a motion for summary judgment issue with one of our cases, racing right up to the midnight deadline.”
Being a corporate counsel means wearing many hats, she says.
“Sometimes it’s a liability issue that comes up, where we need to make the right decision on should we resolve a case, versus litigating it,” she says. “Sometimes contracts come across my desk, we have vendors who want to work with us, and the contractual terms might not be as favorable, so we’re negotiating.”
After earning a JD from Nova Southeastern University in 2012, Morgan went on to earn an MBA in Business Intelligence/Analytics, training she employs regularly for corporate governance matters that also fall into her wheelhouse.
“The business is always trying to make projections on what the upcoming fiscal year will look like, so I’m being asked to put together data and recording for a chief legal officer to provide to other members in the board room, and our chief executive officer,” she says.
Also responsible for overseeing lawyer recruitment, Morgan faces a challenge familiar to many senior partners — beginning lawyers who expect to work from home.
Calling herself “old school,” Morgan insists on in-person job interviews, and believes beginning lawyers benefit most by working closely with supervisors.
“We have a generation of young lawyers who came out of law school in the last five or so years who’ve never set foot in a courtroom, they’ve never argued in front of a judge in person, they’ve never conferred with opposing counsel in person, they don’t even want to pick up the phone to call opposing counsel,” she says. “So, we’re balancing that with a hybrid schedule. I try to encourage them to come to the office, especially the younger practicing lawyers.”
Charbel Barakat, chief counsel, Florida region, for D.R. Horton, Florida’s largest homebuilder, says he was eager to lend his experience to the committee.
At D.R. Horton, Barakat oversees a legal team with 30 members.
“I would say virtually all my work deals with in-house lawyers,” he said. “We are being retained by those companies, and by virtue of that, we are interfacing with in-house lawyers as our clients on a daily basis. I speak to them often, I know what issues are important to them, what opportunities are important to them, and for that reason, being in leadership and being able to add that perspective is what attracted me to the opportunity.”
Baker-Barnes said that in addition to Farach serving as an important bridge, the committee also includes a lawyer who transitioned into the corporate counsel world.
That experience could help lawyers looking to make a change later in their careers, she says.
The initiative will offer committee members, the Bar, and the corporate sector “multiple lanes of opportunity,” Baker-Barnes says.
“From the businesses that are represented here, they get not only the exposure from having their lawyers involved, but the opportunity to collaborate and work with the Bar. From my perspective, it’s a win-win on all sides and really a great opportunity for us to have a reach that we haven’t had.”
