How can we help you?

• Author: Schifino, William J., Jr.
• Position: Florida Bar - President's page

The question isn't what is The Florida Bar going to do to me, but rather what can it do for me?

Certainly, we are a self-regulated profession, and we should be grateful for that. But The Florida Bar is much more than a regulatory body. We are very proud of the fact that over these many years we have continued to enhance and improve upon our member benefits, while at the same time we have not raised our annual fees, which are some of the lowest in the country, in 15 years.

We have recognized, as annunciated on June 7, 1949, by the Supreme Court in the case of Petition of Florida State Bar Association et al., 40 So. 2d 902 (Fla. 1949), that The Florida Bar's mission is certainly to serve the best interest of the public, but also our members.

We take that charge to heart. This year, one of your Bar's four primary focuses has been the enhancement and delivery of member benefits--particularly when it comes to doing what we can for our small and solo firm practitioners. There are too many member benefits to address in one column, but there are four that I would like to highlight.

1) Trust Accounting Software

In March, the Board of Governors approved a brand new, six-month pilot project, set to begin around August 1, aimed at automatically bringing participating lawyers into compliance with Bar trust accounting rules.

Board of Governors parliamentarian Andy Sasso said the Bar is looking for a dozen or so law firms, each with funds of multiple clients in the firms' trust accounts, to participate. The program is expected to be free for Bar members and have an added bonus of substantially boosting IOTA income for The Florida Bar Foundation. You will not have to do reconciliation for any trust accounting work; as long as you put in the correct information, all accounting work will be done automatically.

Currently, there are more than 33,000 trust accounts in Florida scattered among 200-plus banks totaling $5 billion, with interest at about 10 basis points. The proposal will create one large "omnibus" trust account that pools the trust accounts of participating lawyers. Because competitive rates will be sought from insured banks around the country, the IOTA interest rate would go from about 10 to 90 basis points.

FIS, the Jacksonville-based financial services company working with the Bar, would get 20 percent to pay expenses and costs of the omnibus account, and the Foundation would get 80 percent. If all lawyer IOTA accounts were in the program--and...