The Bar by the numbers
Membership in Florida Bar sections and traffic to FloridaBar.org continues to grow and LegalFuel’s podcast downloads exceeded 338,000 in the last fiscal year.
As a new Bar year gets underway July 1, here is a glance back at what was accomplished over the past year.
As of June 1, there were 111,454 members of The Florida Bar; 96,762 are in good standing, and 93,369 are eligible to practice.
The Bar’s website generated more than 37 million page views in the past 12 months and the Bar’s social media platforms produced more than 13 million impressions, including:
• Facebook: 1,400 posts, 8,019,099 impressions, and 98,035 social interactions
• Facebook (YLD): 627 posts, 746,262 impressions, and 22,285 social interactions
• Twitter: 3,917 tweets, 2,500,572 impressions, and 16,419 social interactions
• Instagram: 569 posts, 907,490 impressions, and 48,322 social interactions
• Instagram (YLD): 385 posts, 248,169 impressions, and 10,694 social interactions
• LinkedIn: 431 posts, 757,811 impressions, and 9,755 social interactions
The News’ electronic presence continues to grow to the point the News’ portion of the Bar website generates about 117,000 clicks per month, and the News & Journal monthly all-member email open rates average 42%, twice the industry average. In the past Bar year, the Journal provided service opportunities for more than 200 Bar members serving as authors, section column editors, and as members of the Journal & News Editorial Board.
Lawyer Regulation
The Bar’s Lawyer Regulation Department reported more than 11,000 requests for assistance in 2022-23 and opened 2,682 files that resulted in 230 cases and 149 disciplinary orders.
Of those orders, the Supreme Court disbarred 15 Florida lawyers, accepted one disbarment on consent, and three permanent disbarments. The year also saw 24 disciplinary revocations, 10 of which were permanent. Disbarred lawyers may not reapply for admission for five years. They are required to go through an extensive process that includes a rigorous background check and retaking the bar exam. Disciplinary revocation is tantamount to disbarment.
The year also saw 64 suspensions (includes 21 rehabilitative suspensions, eight emergency suspensions, and two felony suspensions); 16 public reprimands; 27 admonishments; 35 final hearings; and 11 appeals filed by the bar.
One hundred and forty-two members were ordered to diversion programs; 163 cases were sent to fee arbitrations; and 36 were settled through grievance mediations.
The Clients’ Security Fund approved 90 claims and paid out $327,477 over the past year. CSF claims were filed against 99 members.
Programs
The Bar’s Programs Division reports another year-over-year increase in section membership numbers. There were 50,009 total section members in 2022-2023, an increase of .3% over the prior fiscal year. The past four years have seen .9%, 1.3%, 1.6%, and .3% year-over-year incremental increases, respectively. Since the 2019-2020 fiscal year, section memberships have increased approximately 3.1%.
The Florida Bar’s CLE market share continues to be strong compared to all other CLE providers. The current Florida Bar CLE market share is 38.6%, up more than 1% over the prior year. The Bar’s CLE market share has increased almost 5% over the past five-years, increasing from 33.79% in 2019 to 38.6% today.
The total number of CLE hours reported by Bar members that make up the Bar’s 38.6% market share is 338,421 CLE hours. The next closest competitor for market share is at approximately 1% of the market, but there are several hundred competitors.
BLSE
The Legal Specialization & Education Department consistently maintained a less than one-week turnaround for CLE mail and CLE course approvals. In most instances the turnaround time was only a couple days. Staff posted more than 46,000 credits received through CLE mail and Bar members posted more than 350,000 credits through the Member Portal. LSE staff also received, reviewed, and approved more than 11,000 accreditation applications from more than 1,200 CLE providers.
LegalFuel
The LegalFuel website generated more than 768,000 page views over the past year. The LegalFuel YouTube channel had more than 80,000 views of LegalFuel CLE programs with more than 41,000 hours of CLE videos watched.
LegalFuel.com also added 35 new free CLE courses to its catalog and logged 260,877 page views in the past year.
A new content resource was added to LegalFuel last fiscal year under the name LegalFuel Knowledge Center that provides additional law practice management, law office management, and technology resources for lawyers. The Knowledge Center provides case studies, eBooks, on-demand webinars, white papers, and infographics on relevant law office/practice management and law office technology topics. This service is complimentary for Bar members.
Helplines and Hotlines
The Bar’s Ethics Hotline fielded some 20,000 calls this past year and the Ethics and Advertising staff reviewed nearly 4,000 lawyer advertisements. The staff also participated in more than a dozen CLE presentations and News articles, including CLE presentations for the Annual Ethics & Professionalism Update and Ethics School and articles responding to the ABA’s “Reply All” Opinion 503 and how new innovations in artificial intelligence implicate the Rules of Professional Conduct.
The Bar’s UPL Department obtained “thousands of dollars” in restitution for UPL victims and worked with the Communications Department to provide messaging to target audiences about how not become a victim of the unlicensed practice of law.
The free Florida Bar Tech Helpline was extended for a new calendar year to run through December 2023. Since the launch of the Tech Helpline, the site has had 259 appointments and 118 online messages and phone calls. The Bar continues to market and promote the new Tech Helpline via email, social media, website, and the Member Benefits program.
Legal Pubs
The Bar’s Legal Publications Book team released 20 titles since July 1, 2022, and had four additional titles scheduled to be released before the end of the fiscal year.
The books team is also doing significant work to maximize auto-shipments and an analysis of new publishing opportunities is underway, including ways to repurpose existing content.
Four new benefits providers were added to the Bar’s Member Benefits line up since the beginning of the fiscal year. That brings the total number of approved member benefit providers to more than 75, more than any other state member benefits program.
Incoming Bar President Scott Westheimer recently wrapped up the committee appointments process for the coming Bar year and 202 members were selected for leadership appointments. There were 1,339 applicants who submitted over 2,700 Committee Preference Forms to serve on various Bar committees during Westheimer’s term.
Florida Free Legal Answers continues to be one of the top programs in the nation. The Florida Bar is celebrating the sixth anniversary of the Florida program that now boasts over 1,075 volunteers who fielded more than 5,500 questions this past year.
Rules
The court rules program staff also had a busy year, filing:
• Three reports for Civil Procedure Rules Committee;
• Two reports for Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration Committee;
• Four reports for Criminal Procedure Rules Committee;
• One report for Florida Probate Rules Committee;
• One report for Traffic Court Rules Committee;
• Two reports for Juvenile Procedure Rules Committee;
• Seven reports for Appellate Procedure Rules Committee;
• Two reports for Family Law Procedure Committee;
• One report for Code and Rules of Evidence Committee; and
• Five petitions for Rules Regulating The Florida Bar.
The reports and petitions encompassed over 140 rules.
The Bar’s General Counsel’s Office closed 1,391 public records requests and subpoenas in the last year and the average time to close a request was 8.7 days.
