The path to unity: The Florida Bar: initiative invites all members 'to dance'.

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A path leads upward over multi-colored squares, and the words proclaim: "Inclusion ... The Path to Unity."

The Florida Bar's new diversity initiative logo was unfurled at The Florida Bar's Annual Convention, debuting in banners and posters on display in high-traffic areas, with mini versions included in each participant's packet.

Even though her title is diversity initiatives manager, Arnell Bryant-Willis said, "What The Florida Bar is really seeking is inclusion of its members. So the poster represents inclusion of all members. It's a path to unity. We are on a road where we are trying to unify. The bottom of the path is very wide, because we are trying to capture everyone. And if we ever get to the top, we've made it."

While diversity is one thing we have in common --our differences--the goal is to be inclusive, bringing members together, so everyone has a chance to fully participate in the Bar, she said.

And, Bryant-Willis said, the Bar's inclusion effort goes far beyond just ethnicity and will also encompass practice area and geographic diversity; sole practitioners; women; persons with disabilities; and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

"We don't just want to be invited to the party. We want to be invited to dance," Bryant-Willis said. "When we are unified, we are all dancing, participating, celebrating, and all serving in capacities in the Bar that you just know that everybody is represented."

Rather than members just paying Bar fees and sitting on the sidelines, the Bar leadership hopes more lawyers will get in the pipeline and become more active.

"Inclusion is like a group hug," Bryant-Willis said. "It's a total embodiment of the legal community."

Detailed in the Bar's Strategic Plan, Objective V reads: "Continue to encourage and promote diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the profession and the justice system."

Among the action steps listed in the Bar's strategic plan are to execute a grassroots contact program with minority bar associations and to develop a communication plan that lets minorities know about what opportunities exist and the Bar's priority on minority inclusion.

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"It's important that everybody knows from December 1 through January 15, on the Bar's website, there is a call for lawyers to apply for committee appointments," Bryant-Willis said.

The communication plan is...