Mentoring, gender bias, diversity on Professionalism Committee’s agenda
A CLE on mentoring diverse lawyers — including those with neurological differences — as well as a toolkit to promote mentoring, examining how to better incorporate diversity and inclusion into the center’s work, and looking at gender bias through the lens of professionalism are among the upcoming projects of the Bar’s Standing Committee on Professionalism.
The committee, at its October 14 session during the Bar’s Fall Meeting, went over its plans for the coming year and reviewed activities of the Bar’s Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism.
Jason Berger, chair of the Mentoring Initiatives Working Group, said the panel is working on a November 19 Zoom-based CLE on mentoring lawyers, and in this specific case neuro-diverse lawyers. The CLE will include Berger talking with Coral Gables attorney, author, and artist Haley Moss, who is on the autism spectrum.
Rebecca Bandy, director of the professionalism center, noted Moss has done a #ProTip Tuesday — the popular series of short professionalism videos hosted on the center’s website.
“I am so excited for Jason to interview her and learn about neuro-diverse lawyers. This is such a great opportunity for us,” Bandy said.
Signup information will be posted on the center’s website for the hour-long CLE, which is planned to be held at lunchtime.
The working group will also be repeating its successful Mentorship Makes a Difference seminar early next year, which will be aimed at new lawyers and law students, Berger said.
The Gender Bias Working Group has two ongoing projects, according to Chair Magdalena Ozarowski.
One is to prepare a toolkit for law firms to guide them on gender bias issues, an ongoing project she said should be completed soon.
The second project looks at “gender bias through the lens of professionalism,” Ozarowski said. “The behaviors that are part of being discriminated against based on gender are incredibly unprofessional.”
The working group is looking for lawyers who can give examples, not necessarily with their names, of gender bias they have encountered.
Bandy said the audience for the eventual product would be Bar members, law schools and lawyers in other states looking for information on the subject.
The Mental Health & Wellness Working Group is looking at the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on lawyers, including substance abuse problems related to isolation, and how that affects professionalism, said committee member Bernice Dewlow.
Chair Abby Spears, of the Education & Resource Working Group, said the panel has several projects. That includes continuing promoting and recruiting volunteers for the professionalism speakers bureau, expanding the professionalism videos on #ProTip Tuesdays including offering production help to attorneys willing to do a video, working on “professionalism fact patterns” to demonstrate professional conduct, and reviewing diversity and inclusion language.
Judge John Badalamenti, chair of the Awards Working Group, said an examination is underway on taking online nominations through the professionalism center’s website for the committee’s various awards, including the Hoeveler Judicial Professionalism Award and the Law Faculty/Administrator Award. That would facilitate the handling of nominations for the annual awards.
“What we learned from COVID is snail mail … is sometimes not getting routed very quickly with folks working remotely,” Badalamenti said.
Bandy gave an update of the professionalism center’s activities, including a changing of its electronic newsletter to an online blog, “The Professional.”
Instead of publishing the newsletter two or three times a year as a PDF, she said, now it can be continually updated as new articles and information become available.
“We wanted to make it easier for people to use as a resource,” Bandy said. “We can tag posts, we can use clouds to help organize all the posts. We can post regularly, we don’t have to wait to post two to three times a year.”
It’s also easier to link articles and photographs to the center’s social media accounts, she said.
The center has also begun the second season of its “Never Contemplated” podcast on women in the profession, Bandy said. The initial second season episode features U.S. Southern District Judges Beth Bloom and Robin Rosenberg talking with host Judge Hental Desai about their careers and their collaboration on the “Civil Discourse and Difficult Decisions” program for students and teachers.
Bandy said there has been more than 6,000 downloads of the podcast’s various episodes.
Katie Young, the center’s assistant director, reported on the Engle Grant the center received from U.S. Middle District of Florida judges to produce professionalism videos. She said the center is collaborating with the Young Lawyers Division to produce the videos.
“We’re always trying to stay innovative and stay ahead of the curve,” Bandy said.
