Bar panel encourages minority attorneys to get more involved.

Florida Bar officials and representatives from minority and speciality bar associations agreed recently that more needs to be done to draw a broader cross-section of the Bar's membership into its activities.

The best ways to do that occupied much of the discussion at the recent meeting of the Membership Outreach Committee. The panel, chaired by Bar President-elect Alan Bookman, was created by President Kelly Overstreet Johnson to work on recommendations from the Bar's Diversity Symposium held last April.

The symposium made recommendations pertaining to the judiciary, law schools, the legal profession, and the Bar, and set an overall goal of having the Bar membership reflect the state's diverse population by 2014.

"What I'd like this committee to do is review this report [from the symposium], see how it fits within this committee's structure, and make recommendations on what other sections and committees should look at this," Bookman said at the start of the meeting.

Johnson noted that the Bar's Student Education and Admissions to the Bar Committee and the Law Related Education Committee will be studying part of those recommendations, as will the Equal Opportunities Law and the Public Interest Law sections.

Bookman added he saw the committee's role as looking at the symposium recommendations affecting the Bar, and coordinating the work of the other sections and committees.

Johnson reiterated her frustration--expressed in other venues--with not getting enough minorities to apply for Bar positions.

"I basically put a minority on every committee that I could, but I had to go out and reemit people," she said. "We have to have people willing to volunteer and then we have to have people actually willing to come and participate."

Committee member Allison Bethel, who works in the Ft. Lauderdale Attorney General's Office, suggested the Bar compile a list of minority and speciality bar meetings, including their special functions such as scholarship dinners. Then Bar leaders, including Board of Governors members, should be encouraged to attend as many as possible.

"Make your presence known," she said. "You need to know what's going on. It's got to be a concerted effort where you see white people from the Bar at all of the events you have. People then say, 'Hey, you're really sincere."

Bookman agreed, adding, "This applies to all bar associations, not just black bar associations.

Johnson noted she and Bookman are already attending as many speciality Bar...