Annual Meeting of The Florida Bar

I spent most of last week in Orlando at the Annual Meeting of The Florida Bar. I spent four full days attending committee meetings and a seminar. Here are some of the "empathy sightings":

Legal Needs of Children:

A little background: The Florida Bar committees addressing children's needs are consistently motivated, driven, by empathy - empathy in action. There are three such committees in which I have participated. The Family Law Section of the Bar has a committee working to help dependent children and children in need of adoption. Other children's needs are addressed in the Children's Issues Committee, of which I am a member. The Public Interest Law Section of the Bar has a Legal Needs of Children Committee. It does not limit which children it helps. A larger version of that committee is Legal Needs of Children Standing Committee of the entire Florida Bar.

On Thursday, June 28th, I sat in on the Florida Bar's standing committee meeting; my term as a member begins at the September meeting. There must have been about forty people there, most of whom work in social or legal services for children. There is no requirement that anyone participate in Bar committees, so the strong attendance that I saw speaks well for the attendees' commitment to the issues addressed, i.e., the welfare of children. Most of the attention was on children in the dependency division of the court, abused or neglected children.

Animal Law Committee: Yes George, there is a committee of The Florida Bar devoted to all issues related to animals. I attended the committee meeting as well as the seminar that the committee presented. It was quite an eye-opener to hear about the problems that disabled people have regarding service animals and emotional support animals.

Domestic Violence: Preventing and protecting against domestic violence is a daunting assignment. The committee works on steadily and is always an interesting meeting.

There was much more for me at the meetings; glad I went.