Business leaders come to the civil legal access table.

• Author: Coleman, Gregory W.
• Position: Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice - President's page

Publix Super Markets Senior Vice President and General Counsel John A. Attaway, Jr. Walt Disney Company Chief Counsel Jeffrey S. Craigmile. Cheney Brothers Chair and Chief Executive Officer Byron Russell.

These three Florida business leaders will be at the table when the Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice meets for the first time on January 16 in Tallahassee. They join two dozen others--including members of the judiciary, executive, and legislative branches--who will serve on the commission that is charged with examining the unmet civil legal needs of disadvantaged, low-income, and middle-class Floridians.

"Our intention, basically, is to lock up all these smart people in a room, let them knock it around, and see what they come up with," Chief Justice Jorge Labarga said, after signing the administrative order creating the commission on November 24.

"The participation of the business community is an integral part of this commission," Labarga said that day. "This is a societal problem that needs to be dealt with by all segments of society."

Members of the business community, he said, employ thousands who are involved in the court system--whether it's because of divorce, unpaid child support, foreclosures, landlord-tenant disputes, or domestic violence. And when employees' problems go unresolved, Chief Justice Labarga said, their productivity at work decreases.

The involvement of these high-profile business leaders makes the Florida Commission on Access to Justice unique, as it joins 32 other states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico in establishing access to justice initiatives to collectively identify and remove barriers to civil justice for people who cannot afford to hire lawyers.

Why? Because business leaders are problem-solvers and they are going to help us think outside the box.

Access to civil justice is a societal problem that cannot be cured by the legal profession alone.

We lawyers have tried to do our part. We contributed 1.7 million hours of pro bono attorney time last year, which calculates to $425 million at a $250 hourly rate. That's almost half a billion dollars worth of pro bono time --plus we contributed $5 million on top of that.

Yet, the legal services gap widens and has reached a crisis point.

The majority of family law matters include...