Court acts to enhance the content, education, and enforcement of professionalism standards
Justices also order a net reduction in the number of CLE credits members must earn every three-years from 33 to 30
The Supreme Court has agreed to adopt most of the recommendations of a Florida Bar special professionalism committee, but with some modifications.
“The Court is grateful for the Special Committee’s hard work and its thorough and thoughtful report and recommendations,” the justices wrote.
Rather than grant the special committee’s request to slightly increase the number of CLE credits Florida Bar members must earn every three-year reporting cycle, justices ordered a net reduction, from 33 to 30.
Former President Michael Tanner formed the “Special Committee for the Review of Professionalism in Florida” in 2021 and charged it with recommending ways to enhance the content, education, and enforcement of professionalism standards.
Justices agreed with a key recommendation to adopt a “Code for Resolving Professionalism Referrals,” that updates voluntary professionalism panels in each of Florida’s 20 judicial circuits.
“This new code will clarify and enhance the important role of local professionalism panels, entities that are independent of The Florida Bar and established in each circuit for the purpose of informally resolving referrals of claimed unprofessional conduct by lawyers practicing in that circuit,” the order states. Justices stressed that the new code “clarifies the distinction between the informal, local professionalism panel process and the formal grievance process for investigating and adjudicating possible violations of the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct.”
Tanner said he was pleased with the ruling.
“I’m personally very grateful to the court for doing this, and I think the lawyers in Florida should be as well because I think it will really help make a difference in our professionalism going forward,” Tanner said. “We really did need to empower those local professionalism panels, it’s an underutilized mechanism.”
The special committee, co-chaired by immediate past President Gary Lesser, and Palm City attorney Elizabeth Hunter, found that the voluntary panels could be highly effective at correcting bad behavior, but that they lacked uniform procedures. The committee’s review also found that some committees had gone dormant for lack of referrals.
In the order, justices endorsed the concept.
“The Court agrees with the Special Committee that the informal, peer-to-peer mentoring approach offered by local professionalism panels can materially improve professionalism among Florida lawyers,” the order states.
The new code requires chief judges to establish “LPPs” in each circuit to “receive, screen, and act on referrals of unprofessional conduct; and address those referrals informally, if possible; or refer those referrals The Florida Bar for investigation.”
It defines “unprofessional conduct” as a “violation of the Standards of Professionalism,” that are found in the Oath of Admission to The Florida Bar, the Florida Bar Creed of Professionalism, the Professionalism Expectations, and The Rules Regulating The Florida Bar.
“Minor or isolated” instances of unprofessional conduct may be addressed through the informal process, the new code states.
“However, when unprofessional conduct is substantial or repeated, that conduct may be referred to The Florida Bar for a disciplinary investigation into whether the formal disciplinary process should be initiated,” the justices wrote.
The code gives “any person” the right to make a referral to an LPP.
It requires the chief judge in each circuit to appoint panels that “must include judges (current or senior, trial or appellate) and local attorneys that are in good standing…from diverse areas of practice with varying levels of experience but must have practiced law at least five years.”
The order requires that beginning in 2023, the chairs of the panels or their designees must meet every other year and make recommendations to the Supreme Court on such things as uniform procedures and forms.
The new code makes it clear that all documents and records “provided to, and proceedings before, each LPP are confidential.”
Each LPP will be required twice a year, in June and December, to file written reports with their respective chief judges, the Supreme Court, and The Florida Bar that identify “all professionalism referrals received against a member of The Florida Bar.”
However, “the reports must not include identifying information for the respondent or the party who submitted the referral.”
The Supreme Court order also amends the “Professionalism Expectations.”
“The revised Professionalism Expectations that we adopt today emphasize that Florida’s Professionalism standards apply to all forms of communication, including online communication, and to both in-person and remote (video or audio) interactions with others.”
The most significant difference justices had with the special committee concerned proposed amendments to the rule that regulates continuing legal education.
The special committee proposed increasing to three hours the number of professionalism CLE credits lawyers must earn every three-year reporting cycle. That would have increased a Florida Bar member’s overall continuing legal education credit requirement for a three-year reporting cycle from 33 to 35 hours.
Instead, the order revises Rule 6-10.3(b) (Minimum Hourly Continuing Legal Education Requirements) differently.
“Adopting in part a recommendation of the Special Committee, today we amend the CLE rule to require Bar members to complete, during each reporting cycle, a two-hour legal professionalism course produced by The Florida Bar and approved by this Court,” the order states. “This two-hour course, which the Bar will offer free of charge, replaces the existing one-hour professionalism program requirement.”
The order goes on to make two additional changes.
“First, the overall CLE requirement is reduced to 30 hours per reporting cycle. This change restores the required hourly total in place when the Court first imposed mandatory CLE in 1987, and it aligns the total CLE hours requirement for lawyers with the corresponding continuing education requirement for judges.”
The order points to the current CLE rule, which says, in part, that “a[t] least 5 of the 33 credit hours must be in approved legal ethics, professionalism, bias elimination, substance abuse, or mental health and wellness programs.”
Instead, the order states, “Today, the Court amends the rule by removing ‘bias elimination’ from that list. The Court believes that non-discrimination principles and civility can and should be addressed in the context of legal ethics and professionalism.”
Justices added that courses in “bias-elimination” that meet The Florida Bar’s general course approval requirements “will continue to count toward the fulfillment of Bar members’ overall 30-hour CLE requirement; but such courses will no longer count toward fulfillment of the five-hour sub-requirement specified in the rule.”
The new Code for Resolving Professionalism Referrals and the amendments to the Professionalism Expectations take effect immediately, the order states. The amendments to Bar Rule 6-10.3 take effect January 8, 2024.
Any ‘bias elimination’ courses taken prior to the effective date of the amendments to Bar Rule 6-10.3 will count toward a member’s fulfillment of the five-hour sub-requirement for the member’s applicable reporting cycle, according to the order.
“For any member who has less than three months remaining in his or her CLE reporting cycle on the effective date of the Bar Rule 6-10.3 amendments, the requirement to take the two-hour Bar-produced course on professionalism will not apply until the member’s subsequent reporting cycle.”
Noting that the amendments were not previously published for comment, justices set a 75-day deadline to file comments.
Ready the July 6 order, In Re: Code for Resolving Professionalism Referrals and Amendments to Rule Regulating the Florida Bar 6-10.3, Case No. SC2023-0884.
