Hello everyone and welcome to this Ethics Alert blog which will discuss the recent opinion of the Supreme Court of Florida implementing a Code for Resolving Professionalism Complaints. The Florida Supreme Court’s opinion is In re: Code for Resolving Professionalism Complaints, No. SC13-688 (June 6, 2013) and is online at: https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2013/sc13-688.pdf. The new Code is appended to the Court’s opinion.
The Court’s opinion noted that the issue of civility/professionalism has been studied for many years (since at least 1989) and that the Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism had submitted a study concluding that “further integrated, affirmative, practical and active measures are now needed.”
The opinion also stated that “(o)ver the years, we have come to understand that professionalism or acceptable professional behavior is not simply a matter of character or principles nor is it simply an issue of rule following or rule violating. To the contrary, unacceptable professional conduct and behavior is often a matter of choice or decision making. Therefore, we accept the proposal of the Professionalism Commission to create a structure for affirmatively addressing unacceptable professional conduct. This first step admittedly contains small initial measures designed to firmly encourage better behavior.”
Bottom line: As I have indicated in previous Ethics Alerts, the Florida Supreme Court has been very active in addressing the professionalism of Florida lawyers both in and out of Bar disciplinary matters and the implementation of this Code for Resolving Professionalism Complaints is a manifestation of those continued efforts. In my experience, the reporting of professionalism complaints is very infrequent and circuit lawyer professionalism committees are vastly underutilized. I would encourage Florida lawyers to consider using the professionalism committee as a step toward resolving such issues.
Be careful out there!
Disclaimer: this e-mail does not contain any legal advice and the comments herein should not be relied upon by anyone who reads it.
Joseph A. Corsmeier, Esquire
Law Office of Joseph A. Corsmeier, P.A.
2454 McMullen Booth Road, Suite 431
Clearwater, Florida 33759
Office (727) 799-1688
Fax (727) 799-1670
