Voluntary associations use Bar grants to promote diversity at the local level.

While the legal community in Miami-Dade County is likely the most diverse in the state, it can--at times--seem quite segregated as there are so many specialty bar options catering to different racial, gender, and practice area groups.

To try to help bridge that divide, the Miami-Dade Chapter of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers, the Cuban American Bar, and the Dade County Bar launched a Diversity and Inclusion Consortium Project to identify the unique challenges facing diverse lawyers in the community, as well as establish goals and objectives to increase the number of diverse lawyers in law firms and other areas of private practice.

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To open that dialog, the organizing entities in May brought together leaders from the area's many local bars for a Diversity Summit.

Miami-Dade FAWL President Kristy M. Johnson said while Miami-Dade County has "a ton" of voluntary bar organizations working to improve diversity --including CABA, the Puerto Rican Bar Association, the Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Bar Association, the Wilkie D. Ferguson Bar Association, and the Muslim Bar Association, just to name a few --their efforts lack continuity.

"So the goal was to bring leaders of the organizations together to collaborate on common diversity goals that we can all help move forward to develop a diversity action plan and to get that dialog going," Johnson said.

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The $3,000 needed to put on the event came from a grant from The Florida Bar's Special Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. Co-chaired by Board of Governors members Arnell Bryant-Willis and Dori Foster-Morales, the special committee was charged with developing a diversity grant program, which supports and promotes conferences, seminars, training, and dialog through efforts by local and specialty bar associations as part of the Bar's expanded efforts to promote diversity at the local level.

Foster-Morales said the committee has had a good reaction to its efforts and "enthusiasm for the [grant] program."

The Bar's Special Committee on Diversity and Inclusion last year allocated $50,000 worth of grants to 30 applicants involving 39 voluntary bars. The program will have another $50,000 in grants to distribute in 2011-12 to voluntary bar associations with individual grants up to $1,500 and up to $3,000 to multiple voluntary bars working together on a project. Funding priority will be given to coalitions of local bar associations within circuits...