Your board of governors.

• Author: Angones, Francisco R.
• Position: Florida

The Florida Bar--both its operations and its Board of Governors--has evolved over the years in pursuit of the Bar's goals of better serving its members and the public.

First, a quick review. The board has 51 voting members, including two public, nonlawyer members, the president of the Young Lawyers Division, and the Bar's president-elect. The Bar president presides over the meetings, but votes only in the event of a tie. Under Bar rules, the YLD president-elect sits as a nonvoting member of the board.

It is my general impression that the board has changed over the past 10 years, just as the Bar generally has changed, to include a broader spectrum of lawyers.

It wasn't very many years ago that the board was comprised almost entirely of white males, with very few white female members. But the 2007-08 board, not counting the ex-officio members, will include 10 women, five African-Americans (that includes three African-American women), and three Hispanics. With active recruitment of minorities in recent years for Bar leadership positions, including serving on and heading Bar committees, we are hopeful for further enrichment to the Board of Governors in our efforts to diversify the Bar and adhere to the high standards required by our profession. Additionally, the presidents of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers, the Virgil Hawkins Florida Chapter of the National Bar Association, and the Cuban-American Bar Association sit as nonvoting members of the board by invitation of the president. The latter memberships underscore the increasing diversity on the board.

In order to consider the histories and opinions of these members' on various subjects related to the practice of law, I performed a review of the biographical information of the 51 members of this Board of Governors. As you would imagine, law school educational backgrounds vary, with 24 members graduating from the University of Florida; eight from the University of Miami; four from both Stetson and Florida State universities; and one from Nova University. Other law schools represented on the board include Loyola in New Orleans, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, St. Johns University, St. Louis University, George Washington University, Ohio Northern University, Rutgers University, and The Cumberland School of Law.

Listed as birth places are states including: Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and...