Board works to keep parental leave rule before the S. Court.

A suggested new procedural rule favoring court continuances for parental leave should be accepted by the Supreme Court as a "report" from the Bar Board of Governors rather than an out-of-cycle rule amendment submission.

That was the board's November 9 response to the court's earlier order asking the board to explain its authority to file an out-of-cycle amendment to the Rules of Judicial Administration, something under the RJA rules only the court and the Rules of Judicial Administration Committee have authority to do. The RJAC joined the board in making the report and recommendations to the court.

The board addressed the question of whether there is a way for a procedural rule amendment that has been rejected by a procedural rule committee to still reach the Supreme Court. It also said it should have called the filing a report rather than an out-of-cycle rule amendment request.

"[T]he board seeks an amendment to that scrivener's error and requests the court recognize and rename the document to be 'Report of The Florida Bar Board of Governors,'" the Bar said in the filing. "Second, the board and the RJA Committee urge this court to recognize the board has the authority to submit rule amendments or proposals if such are addressed but rejected by a [rules] committee because for these purposes, the board is 'The Florida Bar.' In the alternative, the board seeks the court to recognize the professional value of the proposed rule and adopt the rule through the court's own authority."

The parental leave rule had its genesis in a report from a RJAC subcommittee that presented both a mandatory and discretionary version of the rule at a January 2016 committee meeting. Although unanimously supported by the subcommittee, the overall RJAC rejected both versions and instead said it was a policy rather than a rules issue.

It did return the matter to the subcommittee for further work, and in June 2016, the subcommittee recommended the discretionary version of the rule. However, the full RJAC voted 25-5 against approval.

In the meantime, the proposed rule had been shared with the Bar's Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which unanimously supported the mandatory iteration of the rule.

Following the last RJAC action, then-Bar President Bill Schifino appointed a special committee, with five RJAC members and five Diversity and Inclusion members. That committee eventually recommended a new rule, which says there is a presumption a parental leave continuance of...