The Florida Bar is on track to overhaul its policy advocating “diversity and inclusion” for lawyers in the state, eliminating those terms and adopting a more general policy focused on “the quality of legal services.”
The potential change marks the latest move to curtail attorney diversity efforts focused on race and gender in Florida amid pressure from the state's high court.
The Supreme Court of Florida in January directed the Florida Bar to remove funding for diversity and inclusion from its upcoming budget, prompting the revision of the board policy.
The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors will consider the revised policy when it meets on Friday. A bar spokesperson did not provide further comment on the proposal on Wednesday.
Florida has the nation’s fourth-largest lawyer population, with more than 80,000 attorneys, according to the American Bar Association.
The bar's current policy states that the Florida Bar is “fully committed to the enhancement of diversity and inclusion” in the legal profession, legal education and the justice system, and “affirms its commitment toward a diverse and inclusive environment.” Board policies guide the operations of the Florida Bar and are not rules governing bar members.
The proposed new policy would be called “Improvement of the Quality of Legal Services” and states that the Florida Bar is “fully committed to the improvement of legal services” but does not reference diversity or inclusion. The policy instead affirms a “commitment to an environment that fosters equal access and opportunity for all.”
The Florida Bar and the state supreme court have been at odds over diversity and inclusion since at least 2021, when the court blocked a policy adopted by the bar’s business section requiring continuing legal education programs with three or more presenters to include at least one speaker from an underrepresented demographic.
The supreme court said the Florida Bar must treat all members impartially and without bias when it ordered the group to stop funding diversity initiatives earlier this year. The Florida Bar subsequently disbanded its diversity and inclusion committee.
In February, the court removed “bias elimination” from the list of ethics topics for which Florida lawyers may receive continuing legal education credit. In 2023 it blocked judges from receiving such credit for courses on "fairness and diversity." All seven of the Florida justices were appointed by Republican governors.
Similar anti-DEI efforts are mounting in other corners of the legal profession. The ABA’s legal education arm in August proposed removing the terms “race and ethnicity” from its law school diversity standard and renaming the rule to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling barring colleges and universities from considering race in admissions.
The ABA in November restored “race and ethnicity” to the revised standard. That change is currently pending.
Read more:
Lawyer diversity effort gets cold shoulder from Florida Supreme Court
ABA walks back plan to remove 'race and ethnicity' from law school diversity rules
