Board rejects admission by motion: the vote prohibits any further Vision 2016 study of reciprocity.

Admission by motion in Florida with or without reciprocity has been unanimously rejected by the Bar Board of Governors.

The rejection came at the board's October 16 meeting at Atlantic Beach and after the Vision 2016 committee, which had recommended admission by motion in its preliminary report, changed its position and recommended not adopting admission by motion in its final report.

The board also approved a motion that future recommendations from Vision 2016 and any other commissions must be reviewed by its committees before the full Board of Governors takes a vote. But it tabled another motion to reject consideration of allowing supervised practice for out-of-state lawyers in Florida waiting to take the bar exam and for out-of-state lawyers to be allowed to set up temporary offices in Florida to service their clients after a natural disaster in their states--also known at the "Katrina rule."

The board's vote on admission by motion prohibits any further study on the issue by Vison 2016.

Bar President Ramon Abadin apologized to board members for the ruckus that erupted over admission by motion and reciprocity that saw 1,173 lawyers contact the Bar, some more than once, to express their opposition to admission by motion. Only 185 Bar members supported it. Numerous voluntary bar associations, as well as the Florida Board of Bar Examiners and some Bar sections and committees, also went on record against the idea, which first came in the preliminary report from the Multijurisdictional Practice--State Focus Committee of the Vision 2016 Bar Admissions Subgroup.

Abadin told the board that in a 2013 memo on creating Vision 2016, admission by motion and reciprocity were one of the many issues mentioned that the commission would address in its broad review of technological, legal access, legal education, and bar admission changes rushing at the profession.

"Certainly I had no idea ... or had any prediction which issue of the many issues we're going to study this year would take off and turn into a hot potato like reciprocity did," Abadin told the board. "Certainly I could have done some things differently. We could have approached things differently."

He noted he attended several meetings at local bars to try to keep Bar membership informed.

"If anything I have done or failed to do has caused any of you stress, please accept my apology. We are really trying, in a difficult time of change, to address some very important issues. We have to deal with...