JNC leaders respond to the Governor's call for more diversity.

Stepping up efforts to recruit minorities and women for judicial vacancies and requiring new nominating commissioners to attend sensitivity training were among ideas floated at the 22nd Annual JNC Institute to increase diversity on the bench.

The leaders of the state's JNCs also want to begin collecting demographics on judicial applicants to determine how many minority members are nominated and how many ultimately make it to the bench. The commissioners also want to know how many minority lawyers there are in their jurisdictions.

The day after the institute the Judicial Nominating Procedures Committee set in motion the process for calling a JNC Rules Convention to amend the uniform rules to implement the institute's recommendations.

Institute participants asked Florida Bar President Edith Osman to form a special committee -- including gubernatorial appointees -- to report within six months on what more can be done to increase diversity on the bench.

Carol Licko, Gov. Jeb Bush's general counsel, said the recommendations proposed at the January 12 institute in Miami were a "positive step in the right direction" in fulfilling the Governor's commitment to further diversify the state's judiciary.

"Gov. Bush announced early on in the process that he would like to see a judiciary that reflects the people it serves," Licko said. "That was his charge to us, and we take it seriously."

Judicial diversity became a key issue for this year's institute after Bush wrote an open letter to members of the Bar to clarify his stand on JNC independence. The letter was prompted by reports of his deputy general counsel suggesting regional panels be set up to recruit "ideologically compatible" judicial applicants. In the letter, Bush said he had no intention of supporting any such plan.

But the Governor also said the judiciary does not now-reflect Florida's diversity. His efforts to increase minority representation on the bench are stymied by a lack of diversity in pools of applicants and slates of finalists, he said.

"In the last few weeks, I have received the lists of final nominees for the first 15 of the 32 new judicial positions certified by the legislature this year," Bush said in November, "Of the 56 names, only nine are women and only six are minorities. I am very concerned about this lack of diversity. To the extent the state bench fails to look like Florida in all its diversity, the confidence of Floridians in these critical administrators of justice is...