Committees of The Florida Bar.

Admiralty Law Certification

The Admiralty Law Certification Committee is composed of Vice Chair Patricia Olney and Andrew W. Anderson, Richard J. McAlpin, Michael J. McHale, Joseph P. Milton, Christian D. Keedy, Andrew L. Waks, and Allen K. Von Spiegelfeld. We have received the most able assistance of Michele Lamar-Acuff.

There are currently 47 lawyers certified in admiralty law, and 10 applicants were approved to sit for the examination administered on March 7, 2000, in Tampa. A multiple choice examination is used, which is divided into two parts. Part 1, which is mandatory, contains 100 questions. Part 2 contains a series of questions based on eight fact patterns, some of which are mandatory.

Admiralty law practice in Florida is a relatively small specialty, and our committee is pleased with the number of attorneys who have participated in the certification program.

CARL R. NELSON Chair

Advertising

The Standing Committee on Advertising is responsible for advising members of The Florida Bar on permissible advertising and marketing practices. The committee, which meets monthly, reviews opinions issued by staff counsel, offers guidance to staff in evaluating lawyer advertisements, makes recommendations regarding rule changes, and provides guidance to Florida Bar members concerning both the substantive and procedural requirements of the advertising rules. The standing committee advises Bar members of the substance of the advertising rules through a variety of different methods. An in-depth analysis of the filing requirements, regulations, and committee interpretations is provided in the committee's Handbook on Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation (6th Ed. March 2000). The handbook is available at no cost to members and is designed to provide both a quick and easy reference to filing and substantive guidelines through various checklists and examples, as well as more in-depth discussions of particular types of advertising regulations and recurring situations. The handbook is reviewed and updated by Bar staff with the input of the standing committee to provide an excellent up-to-date guide to Florida's lawyer advertising regulations. The 2000 handbook revision has just been completed following the Supreme Court's issuance of revised attorney advertising rules in Amendments to Rules Regulating The Florida Bar - Advertising Rules, 24 Fla. L. Weekly S591 (Fla. Dec. 17, 1999). The handbook is now available for the first time on The Florida Bar website at www.flabar.org in the advertising regulation section. When the amended rules were issued, staff posted them on the Bar's website for immediate review by Bar members. They also placed explanatory materials regarding the new rules on the Bar's website to assist members with compliance.

The committee, through its staff, has continued this year to periodically publish a column in the The Florida Bar News. The column summarizes highlights of the standing committee's decisions at its monthly meetings and also provides timely discussions of particularly troublesome issues, such as committee interpretation of particular language in advertisements or handling of particular types of advertisements. The committee's goal is to provide Bar members with as much information as possible to assist them in compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct.

To further educate Bar members regarding the advertising rules, the standing committee is now publishing formal written opinions of the Standing Committee on Advertising. The Board of Governors has approved the proposal for formal advertising opinions. Proposed Advisory Opinion A-99-1 was published in The Florida Bar News in October 1999. This and other opinions will be readily available to Bar members as a record of committee decisions interpreting the advertising rules on a number of recurring issues. These opinions will be available on the Bar's website at www.flabar.org.

By far the most time-consuming task of the standing committee this year, as in past years, has been reviewing advertisements filed by members of The Florida Bar to determine whether they comply with the advertising rules. The standing committee reviews decisions of its staff regarding lawyer advertisements if the staffs interpretation of a particular rule or advertisement is appealed by an advertising attorney. Advertisers can appeal decisions of the standing committee to the Board of Governors if they wish to do so. The standing committee also provides guidance to its staff and advertisers, pursuant to requests for guidance, in order to foster compliance with the rules and permit advertisers to accomplish their legitimate advertising goals. The committee works hard to apply the advertising rules

fairly to all types of advertisements and to balance the rights of advertisers with the needs and concerns of the public.

As in previous years, the standing committee has taken an active role in ensuring that lawyer advertising in Florida is filed with The Florida Bar and properly reviewed. The standing committee is committed to aggressively investigating and pursuing lawyers who do not file their ads for review and those few filers who disregard The Florida Bar rules. An ongoing compliance program, headed by staff of the standing committee, reviews Yellow Pages and newspaper advertisements to determine whether nonexempt advertisements have been filed and reviewed. Lawyers who have not filed their advertisements are sent a letter asking them to file their ads and are required to pay a $250 late filing fee approved by the Florida Supreme Court.

The committee welcomes the new advertising rules that have been issued by the Florida Supreme Court. The new rules have organized existing regulations in a way that makes them easier to use and understand for advertisers and should contribute to a more positive public perception of lawyers in Florida.

The standing committee is made up of nonlawyers as well as lawyers. We believe that this has contributed substantially to our work and our broad perspective on advertising and marketing. I would like to thank each of our members: Michael Seminario, Adrienne Katz, James Miller, Jeffrey Pope Watson, Shane Munoz, and my Vice Chair Kimberly Sands for their tremendous contribution and dedication.

Finally, the committee thanks our board liaison, Andrew Needle, and our hardworking staff headed by ethics counsel Elizabeth Tarbert, without whom the business of this standing committee could not be accomplished.

KAREN MATHENY Chair

Appellate Practice Certification

The Appellate Practice Certification Committee embarked on its busiest year ever. This was the first year for approval of recertification applications from board certified attorneys who passed the first certification exam in 1994. Almost all of those originally certified were approved for recertification. Before the testing and approval of new board certified attorneys in the year 2000, there were 126 board certified appellate practice lawyers in Florida. The committee this year embarked on the traditional construction and overseeing of the appellate practice certification exam. This process requires participation of every member, including the generous contributions by Judge James R. Jorgensen of the Third District Court of Appeal. The committee devoted additional time evaluating the process of grading in concert with professionals specializing in the science of testing and statistical analysis of exam questions.

While this undertaking sounds rather dry, and perhaps it could be, the committee recognized the extreme importance to every test taker that the exam be administered fairly, graded with equanimity, and covered the proper balance of appellate practice and related issues to demonstrate to the public that those passing candidates were worthy of bearing the moniker of "Board Certified in Appellate Practice."

In addition, the committee reviewed the qualification standards for entitling candidates for recertification and for initial applications. The existing standards seemed to exclude Florida Bar members who do not otherwise qualify because they have spent the bulk of their career on the appellate bench. If an appellate judge leaves the bench for private practice, and when an appellate practitioner leaves private practice for the bench, the existing standards did not adequately recognize this service to entitle these applicants to become or remain board certified. In both instances, the prior criteria left chasms where candidates with unquestioned worthiness for board certification were no longer able to satisfy the plain reading of the criteria for board certification, or recertification.

In the upcoming year, the committee will oversee administration of the exam, which will include construction of next year's test, grading of that exam, and approval of recertification petitions for the following years' class. This committee has pledged to continue the perfection of the examination process by reviewing the grading criteria, reexamining the testing and grading process, and facilitating the review for the judiciary who are asked to comment on the proficiency of the candidates both because an applicant has listed them as a reference and through blind references requested by the committee.

Board certification committees are necessarily small and are some of the hardest working committee members of The Florida Bar. This committee carries this tradition forward and is peopled with names recognized in civil and criminal appellate ranks.

KIMBERLY A. ASHBY Chair

Aviation Law

During the Bar year 1999-2000 the Aviation Law Committee continued to move to complete previous projects as well as implementing and completing new ones. The committee during its meetings in October 1999 and January 2000 continued its past practice of offering programs that include aviation law CLE credit. Recent CLE programs in conjunction with committee meetings have utilized the Internet and the...