The Bar’s various technology committees to work together
Scott Westheimer
In 1994, a Florida Bar committee rented 25 computers to train lawyers how to surf the web.
“They used DOS,” recalls St. Petersburg attorney and Standing Committee on Technology member Rick Georges, referring to a clunky “Disc Operating System.”
Fast forward 34 years to June 22, 2023, when incoming President Scott Westheimer appeared at a Standing Committee on Technology Committee meeting in a Boca Raton conference room and reiterated his determination to maintain the Bar’s reputation as a national leader in technology.
Less than 24 hours before his swearing in ceremony, Westheimer told Georges and fellow committee members that they will be coordinating this year with two new tech-related committees that he formed last month.
“Technology has changed everything we do, and it keeps progressing,” Westheimer said.
The new panels, a “Committee on Cybersecurity and Privacy Law,” and a “Board Committee on Artificial Intelligence Tools and Resources,” will work closely with the Standing Committee on Technology, Westheimer said.
Incoming Board Technology Committee Chair Alice Sum told the standing committee that her panel will track the activities of all tech-related committees to make sure projects don’t overlap.
“Frankly, we don’t want to be stepping on anybody’s toes, at the same time, not making any assumptions — ‘Oh, that committee is going to handle it.’ I guess it’s a little bit of an air traffic-control situation,” she said.
The chairs of all tech committees will be meeting soon to draft a spreadsheet that will track projects and missions, she said.
“As always, on any issue, the members of the Board of Governors are here to listen,” she says.
Westheimer assured the standing committee that it will retain its core mission, and the high profile it established during the Bar’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This went from a first-year committee to being one of the most important committees we have at the Bar,” Westheimer said.
Incoming President-elect Roland Sanchez-Medina, Jr., who accompanied Westheimer, echoed the sentiment.
“We had our past presidents’ breakfast this morning, and everyone’s concerned about lawyers and technology, so, frankly, what you’re doing is a huge benefit to The Florida Bar,” he said. “Anybody that’s practicing in today’s world, with the immense demands that we have, realizes how much impact technology has.”
The artificial intelligence committee is necessary to keep Bar members abreast of a powerful and potentially useful tool, Westheimer said.
“We’re really looking at everything [AI] does from a high level,” Westheimer said. “Regulation, how it can help self-represented litigants, can it be a member benefit for our members.”
The cybersecurity committee will be co-chaired by Steven Teppler, chair of Mandelbaum Barrett’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Practice Group, and Franklin Zemel, a Saul Ewing partner who also focuses his practice on cybersecurity and privacy law.
Populated by tech experts, the panel will take a more granular approach and help translate the industry’s sometimes indecipherable jargon, Westheimer said.
“When it comes to how it effects our day-to-day practitioners, they’re going to work with you to, quite honestly, say it so normal lawyers can understand,” he said. “I hear those guys and I have no idea what they’re saying half the time.”
The tech focus will be even more important this year, Westheimer said, because the Bar is rolling a new Nota platform that will make it easier for Bar members to manage their trust accounts and remain in compliance with Bar rules.
The Standing Committee on Technology’s official mission is to interact regularly with the LegalFuel: The Practice Resource Center of The Florida Bar, “to assure that technology tools for lawyers and educational assistance concerning technology related to practice management are readily available.”
This year, the committee focused on cybersecurity and sponsored a “President’s Showcase” symposium at the Annual Convention. Another project involved producing a CLE updating Bar members on changes to the E-Filing Portal. It drew so many participants, the Zoom session had to be expanded.
Another project involved combing the tech-related CLE and other free resources on the LegalFuel website to weed out outdated material.
There is a lot to sift, Jamie Moore, a practice management advisor, told the committee.
LegalFuel currently has 170 published CLE courses, that include 198.5 general credit hours, 100.5 technology credit hours, 35.5 ethics credit hours, and 44 board certification credit hours.
“Over the past year, LegalFuel has been visited over 720,000 times. The free CLE webpage continues to receive on average over 10,000 unique page views in a month,” Moore said.
Incoming Standing Committee on Technology Chair Carlos A. Baradat said he hopes in the coming year to arrange presentations from his friends and colleagues in the tech industry.
“Lawyers are at an exciting time, and we’re a committee at an exciting time, because there’s a lot of things coming down the line that we’re going to tackle, we have this whole thing, with ChatGPT, and artificial intelligence and privacy.”
