Bar seeks to 'juice up' its referral service.

In the continuing effort to improve access, the Bar is working on ways to more effectively match clients with lawyers. Bar member input is welcome.

One aspect is how the Bar should respond to private companies advertising "matching" services for lawyers and clients; possibly juicing up the Bar's Lawyer Referral Service and those operated by local bars; improving access to legal services for the 80 percent of Floridians who can't afford them; and, hopefully, finding a way to connect more clients with Florida lawyers, especially those new to the practice.

Oh, yes, do all of this while complying with a Supreme Court mandate to rewrite rules for lawyers who belong to for-profit referral services to prohibit them from using those services, unless they are owned or operated by a Bar member. And keep in mind a few other miscellaneous related factors.

The Board of Governors had an information-only presentation and discussion on all that at its October 16 meeting at Atlantic Beach.

"This discussion is all about access. What the heck does access to justice really mean? Access to justice means the ability of the people in the state of Florida to procure representation; it also means the ability of lawyers in your circuit to be able to serve clients. It is the ability of people ... to have adequate representation in some form to go to trial, get their divorce, have a resolution of a financial situation," said board member Carl Schwait, who presented the information along with board members John Stewart and Renee Thompson and Young Lawyers Division President Gordon Glover.

He added: "It's a strange paradox, isn't it? We have clients who don't have the ability to procure legal services, yet at the same time we have lawyers who need more work, who want to work."

Schwait said the idea for the discussion came from Bar President Ramon Abadin, who asked him to plan for the discussion two months before the meeting.

It got an unplanned impetus in September when the Supreme Court, in a case on the Bar's lawyer referral service rules, rejected a Bar-proposed amendment and instead instructed that it prepare a rule barring lawyers from joining for-profit services unless they are owned or operated by Bar members. The Bar must make its submission by May 24, 2016, adding urgency to the matter.

"Today's discussion is going to be about three areas," Schwait said. "What is a for-profit lawyer referral service? As of today, you don't have to be owned or operated by a member of The Florida Bar.

"Second, we're then going to talk about what is called online platforms and then we're going to talk about The Florida Bar Lawyer Referral Service. Then we're going to have a discussion. We're not asking you...