Bar gets high marks for legal advocacy: membership opinion survey finds balancing family and work is a chief concern of Florida lawyers.

More than 70 percent of respondents to a new Bar survey say The Florida Bar is an excellent or good advocate for the legal profession, up from 63 percent two years ago.

Florida lawyers also indicated that balancing family and work, time management, and stress are their top personal concerns and the most significant problems facing the profession include the public's poor perception of lawyers, the lack of ethics/professionalism, and that there are too many lawyers.

Those findings were among the conclusions drawn from a new survey conducted by the Bar's Research, Planning and Evaluation Department.

Seventy-five percent of all respondents agree that the Bar promotes high standards of ethics and competence in the legal profession, yet 66 percent of those surveyed still say the public does not have confidence in the legal system.

Those surveyed also shared their opinions on lawyer advertising, career satisfaction, and judicial competence and fitness. And the survey provides some information on how lawyers are doing financially, although the income data collected is not as comprehensive as is gathered every other year in the Bar's Law Office Management and Economic surveys.

When asked what will have the greatest impact on the profession over the next 10 years, the most often cited responses were computer technology/Internet, an over-saturation of lawyers, threats to judicial independence, and tort reform.

Also, 89 percent of respondents rated the Bar's continuing legal education seminars as either excellent or good.

The Membership Opinion Survey was mailed to 2,747 randomly selected Bar members in September. By the October 25 deadline, 30 percent of the surveys had been returned. Mike Garcia, director of the Bar's Research, Planning and Evaluation Department, said the results of the survey are statistically valid and the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent at the 95-percent level of confidence.

The Bar as an Advocate

Asked about the Bar as an advocate for the legal profession, 71 percent of respondents rate the Bar as excellent or good, up from 63 percent in 2005 and 66 percent in 2003. In 1995, only 41 percent of lawyers polled thought the Bar was doing an excellent or good job advocating for the profession.

Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of all private practice attorneys rate the Bar as an excellent or good advocate of the profession, compared to 64 percent of all government attorneys who do likewise. More than three-quarters of...