Case Title: In Re: Petition to Amend the Rules of the Supreme Court Relating to Admissions to the Bar and the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar

Citation: 

Docket Number: SC20-1236

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 2020-09-03T00:00:00Z

Document:
Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC20-1236 
____________ 
 
 
IN RE:  PETITION TO AMEND THE RULES OF THE SUPREME COURT 
RELATING TO ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR AND THE RULES 
REGULATING THE FLORIDA BAR. 
 
September 3, 2020 
 
PER CURIAM. 
On August 20, 2020, Petitioners, who total more than 50 members of The 
Florida Bar in good standing, petitioned this Court, pursuant to Rule Regulating 
the Florida Bar 1-12.1(f), to adopt emergency rules to provide for admission to The 
Florida Bar without examination, followed by a supervised practice requirement to 
aid registrants for the July 2020 Florida General Bar Examination who have been 
severely impacted by the delays in administering the examination.1  We have 
jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 15, Fla. Const.2 
 
 
1.  Several comments supporting the petition have been filed. 
2.  Petitioners also request that the Court waive the prefiling requirements 
that they file their petition with The Florida Bar 90 days prior to filing it with the 
Court and publish notice of their intent to file the petition at least 30 days prior to 
filing.  See R. Regulating Fla. Bar 1-12.1(f)-(g).  In light of the emergency nature 
 
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Background 
On August 24, 2020, four days after the petition in this case was filed, Chief 
Justice Canady, with the Court’s approval, established the Temporary Supervised 
Practice Program, under which qualified registrants for the July 2020 Bar 
Examination may practice, on a temporary basis, under the supervision of an 
attorney.  That program is now being implemented by the Florida Board of Bar 
Examiners (Board) and will expire within 30 days after the Board releases results 
for the February 2021 General Bar Examination.  See In re COVID-19 Emergency 
Measures Relating to the 2020 Bar Applicants—Creation of the Temporary 
Supervised Practice Program, Fla. Admin. Order No. AOSC20-80 (Aug. 24, 
2020).  The Court also has assured the Bar applicants waiting to take the 
rescheduled Florida General Bar Examination that the Board will administer the 
online examination on October 13 and 14, 2020.  See In re Covid-19 Emergency 
Changes to the Administration of the July 2020 Florida Bar Examination—
Rescheduling of Online Bar Examination and Authorization of Temporary 
Supervised Practice Program, No. SC20-939 (Fla. Aug. 26, 2020). 
 
of this petition, we excuse Petitioners’ noncompliance with the prefiling 
requirements and waive those requirements as requested.  Because this Court has 
opted to decide this case as expeditiously as possible, to provide as much certainty 
as soon as possible for applicants, Petitioners’ request for oral argument is denied. 
 
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Petitioners, now, ask the Court to adopt emergency rules that “waive the 
requirement of passing all parts of the bar examination” as a condition for 
admission to The Florida Bar and, instead, allow for admission of applicants who 
otherwise qualify for admission based upon graduation from an ABA-accredited 
law school and demonstration of good moral character as provided in Rule 3-12 of 
the Rules of the Supreme Court Relating to Admissions to the Bar.  Under the 
Petitioners’ proposal, Bar applicants registered to take the July Bar exam would be 
admitted immediately upon recommendation of the Board, subject to supervision 
for six months by a Florida attorney who has been a member of The Florida Bar in 
good standing for five years.  At the end of six months of supervision, the 
supervising attorney would “attest[] to the completion of the period of supervised 
practice,” the supervision requirement would terminate, and the newly admitted 
lawyer would enjoy the privileges of unrestricted practice enjoyed by all other 
members in good standing of The Florida Bar.  For the reasons explained below, 
the Court declines to authorize such a pathway to Bar membership. 
Discussion 
Article V, section 15 of the Florida Constitution vests this Court with 
“exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the admission of persons to the practice of law 
and the discipline of persons admitted.”  As with all of our sworn constitutional 
duties, we take this obligation seriously.  In a nation whose freedoms are secured 
 
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by the rule of law and in which civil and criminal justice are largely entrusted to 
the legal profession, it is essential for this Court to ensure that those seeking to 
practice law in this state possess “knowledge of the fundamental principles of law 
and their application,” an “ability to reason logically,” and the preparedness to 
“accurately analyze legal problems,” before they are allowed to offer their services 
to the public.  See Fla. Bar Admiss. R. 3-10.1(a)-(b).  Unfortunately, this Court 
regularly sees the extreme harm done to individual members of the public by 
lawyers who, in practice, fall short of these “essential” requirements.  Id.  That 
harm, when it occurs, undermines confidence in our entire system of justice and, 
consequently, undermines the foundation for our system of justice itself. 
This Court has determined and still believes that law school graduation alone 
does not sufficiently demonstrate the knowledge, ability, and preparedness 
necessary to admit a law graduate to the practice of law in Florida.  Therefore, it 
has long been the Court’s policy to require Bar applicants to demonstrate that they 
meet these essential requirements by taking and obtaining a passing score on the 
Florida Bar Examination before admitting them to The Florida Bar.  See In re Fla. 
Board of Bar Examiners Amend. of Sec. 10 of Art. 2 of Rules Relating to Admiss. to 
the Bar, 113 So. 2d 706 (Fla. 1959) (amending Bar admission rule requiring Bar 
examination and recognizing 1955 adoption of that rule); see also Fla. Bar Admiss. 
R. 4-10; 5-12.  This Court also does not believe that the completion of six months 
 
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of supervised practice can sufficiently substitute for the passage of a 
comprehensive Bar examination that would allow the Court to fulfill its 
constitutional duty to evaluate a Bar applicant’s knowledge and skill before 
admitting the applicant to the unrestricted practice of law. 
Therefore, as noted above, to mitigate the impact of the exam delays on Bar 
applicants, the Court has taken steps to ensure the October administration of the 
online examination and has approved the creation of the Temporary Supervised 
Practice Program, which already has approved participants.  It is the Court’s 
sincere hope that this program will help ameliorate some the burdens of the 
delayed examination for many of the applicants.  In furtherance of that hope, the 
Court joins Florida Bar President Dori Foster-Morales in calling on all Florida 
lawyers who are able to employ and supervise qualified applicants participating in 
the program to do so. 
Because the Court cannot fulfill its responsibilities under article V, section 
15 of the Florida Constitution in the manner requested by Petitioners, the requested 
rule changes are not warranted; and, the Court respectfully declines to adopt them.  
It is so ordered. 
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, LAWSON, MUÑIZ, and COURIEL, JJ., concur. 
LAWSON, J., concurs specially with an opinion. 
LABARGA, J., recused. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
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LAWSON, J., concurring and concurring specially. 
I fully agree with the majority opinion and its conclusion that Petitioners’ 
proposed emergency rule would not allow us to fulfill our obligations under article 
V, section 15 of the Florida Constitution by assuring that those admitted to practice 
law in Florida possess the knowledge and ability necessary to offer unsupervised 
legal service to the public. 
 
Petitioners’ argument for advancing their well-intentioned proposal is 
premised primarily upon “[t]he delays along with the haphazard method in which 
the Florida Board of Bar Examiners has attempted to administer The Florida Bar 
Exam in the Summer of 2020” and the “disruption of the settled expectations” 
suffered by applicants that “has created extreme financial hardships, loss of 
employment opportunities, loss of health care, and repeated psychological stress.” 
 
With respect to the first argument, it might be helpful to explain that, at all 
times, the Board has acted at this Court’s direction in its attempts to provide a 
licensing opportunity on a schedule that would allow applicants to begin their legal 
careers in a time frame as closely aligned as possible to their expectations when 
they entered law school.  With the advice and support of public health officials in 
the executive branch and other health experts and governmental officials in Tampa 
and Orlando, where the in-person examination was scheduled to be held, we 
believed that the Board could successfully administer a fair, reliable, and secure 
 
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examination in July in a manner that would protect the health and safety of those 
scheduled to take, administer, or proctor the exam.  We were guided by the need to 
fulfill our constitutional responsibility to those served by our legal system and by 
our strong desire to provide a bar admission opportunity as soon as possible for 
applicants, with the hope of avoiding disruption to the lives and careers of those 
future lawyers, to the extent possible, during a global pandemic. 
The Board consists of twelve lawyer volunteers and three nonlawyer public 
members, who also are volunteers.  Each Board member, in the best of times, 
dedicates over 500 hours annually of exceptional service to the important task of 
regulating admission to the practice of law, entrusted to this Court by our 
Constitution.  It is hard work; it involves great sacrifice; and, it usually goes 
unrecognized by the legal community and the public that have been well-served for 
years by the Board members’ selfless sacrifice.  During these difficult and 
turbulent times, these volunteers have toiled tirelessly in an attempt to provide a 
testing opportunity for applicants, many putting in long hours without 
remuneration, under stressful conditions, and while attempting to balance a law 
practice or other careers, health and other personal challenges, and family 
responsibilities, while also dealing with the uncertainty that we all face during the 
pandemic.  As COVID-19 cases spiked and we decided that an in-person 
examination could not be safely administered, the Board pivoted at our direction in 
 
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an attempt to provide an online examination as quickly as possible, in a manner 
that fulfills this Court’s constitutional responsibility.  Our failure to administer a 
secure and reliable bar exam in July and August is bitterly frustrating for the 
Board, for the Court, and for applicants.  Those frustrations, however, do not 
justify opening Florida’s legal profession to most Bar applicants registered for the 
July exam without a reliable assessment of their preparedness to practice law. 
 
With respect to Petitioners’ second argument—the “disruption of . . . settled 
expectations” suffered by applicants, along with the attendant financial and other 
hardships and psychological stress, I apologize.  I sincerely wish that our well-
intentioned actions in attempting to provide an admission opportunity as early as 
possible would have succeeded as planned.  When we decided to move forward 
with a July administration of the exam, we had no way of knowing whether 
conditions would even improve by February 2021.  Attempting to stay the course 
with a July administration, even with the obvious obstacles, appeared to be the best 
option for applicants and the legal system at that time.  In hindsight, one could 
speculate that simply postponing testing until October or February might have been 
better for everyone.3  That is the nature of hindsight. 
 
3.  Delaying certainly would have been the easiest course for the Court, the 
Board and, most especially, the Board’s staff.  The Board and its staff are 
completely self-funded by applicant fees and, over the years, to keep admission 
costs as low as possible, this staff has remained lean.  The Board is staffed for 
normal operations and, in retrospect, it would have been helpful to contract with 
 
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I certainly recognize the extraordinary stress that many applicants, who have 
been waiting to take the bar exam, are suffering; and I am confident that this Court 
and the Board will continue to take every responsible step available to alleviate as 
much uncertainty as possible for those applicants.  However, because we cannot 
fulfill our responsibilities under article V, section 15 of the Florida Constitution in 
the manner requested by Petitioners, I fully agree that we must decline to adopt the 
requested emergency rule changes. 
Original Proceeding – Rules of the Supreme Court of Florida Relating to 
Admissions to the Florida Bar and Florida Rules Regulating the Florida Bar 
 
Matthew W. Dietz of Disability Independence Group, Inc., Miami, Florida; and 
Brian L. Tannebaum of Brian L. Tannebaum, P.A., Miami, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Irene Oria of Irene Oria, P.A., on behalf of Hispanic National Bar Association, 
Miami, Florida; Mitchell A. Stone of Mitchell A. Stone, P.A., on behalf of Florida 
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Jacksonville, Florida; Matthew P. 
Meyers, on behalf of Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers-Miami 
Chapter, Miami, Florida; Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Claire V. 
Madill, Assistant Public Defender, on behalf of the Palm Beach County Public 
Defender’s Office, West Palm Beach, Florida; Bob Dillinger, Public Defender, and 
Joy K. Goodyear, Assistant Public Defender, on behalf of the Public Defender’s 
Office of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Clearwater, Florida; and Larry Eger, Public 
Defender, on behalf of the Public Defender’s Office of the Twelfth Judicial 
Circuit, Sarasota, Florida, 
 
 
extra support immediately to give staff the additional resources necessary to deal 
with the extraordinary demands that attempting to administer an exam with this 
many applicants, during a pandemic, has placed upon them.  In time, we will 
reflect upon, analyze, and learn from this experience, although I know that this 
provides little or no comfort to applicants now. 
 
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Responding with comments