Florida

In June, the Special Committee to Improve the Delivery of Legal Services submitted its final report to the Florida Supreme Court, recommending that Florida adopt a Law Practice Innovation Laboratory Program where recommendations, such as amended rules surrounding fee-splitting and law firm ownership as well as regulated nonlawyer providers of limited legal services, would be tested and evaluated.

The pandemic has affected our civil justice system in many ways, yet perhaps the most important role access to justice entities can play in the near future is to advocate for the retention of remote access systems for court appearances as well as for the delivery of legal and self-help services.

The National Center for States Courts has released the first in a series of evaluations of civil justice reform demonstration pilot projects around the country. The pilot, in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, focused on implementing civil case management teams (CCMTs)—an innovative court staffing model that delegates case management responsibilities across a team of judges and staff.

The U.S. legal system is already hard to navigate and understand, but even more so in the aftermath of a natural disaster. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and in preparation for Hurricane Irma, the legal community is coming together in different ways to make legal aid more accessible to people in affected areas.

In July, the nonprofit organization Progress Florida sent a letter to the Florida Constitution Revision Commission outlining proposed revisions to Article V, Section 11, of the state's constitution. The revisions add rules for judicial nominating commissions, such as limitations on membership and provisions ensuring impartiality. The Constitution Revision Commission meets every 20 years, per the state's constitution, to review and recommend constitutional changes to be put on the ballot for voters to consider.

Last Tuesday’s Supreme Court argument was the latest chapter in the Court’s struggle to balance electoral candidates’ right to solicit campaign donations against the appearance or actual threat of corruption that arises when litigants or attorneys donate to a judge’s election campaign and later appear before that same judge in court. What all the Justices seemed to agree about—that electing state court judges poses great risk to the legitimacy of the states’ judiciaries—remains beyond their power to remedy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to settle a conflict in lower federal and state courts regarding whether judicial candidates may personally solicit campaign contributions. The nation's highest court has not addressed the First Amendment rights of judicial candidates since 2002. Every state supreme court to address the constitutionality of these restrictions has upheld them, but federal courts of appeals have split on the issue.

The outcome of governors' races in at least two states—Florida and Kansas—will have meaningful implications for those states' courts. Florida's next governor could have the opportunity to fill four of seven seats on the supreme court. In Kansas, the gubernatorial candidates have a fundamental area of disagreement involving how state supreme court justices should be chosen.

The terms of three members of Florida's seven-member supreme court are set to expire at the same time that the next Florida governor's term expires—on January 8, 2019. Recognizing that state law is unclear as to whether the outgoing or incoming governor has the authority to fill judicial vacancies that occur on inauguration day, a Republican senator has offered a proposed constitutional amendment that would empower the outgoing governor to make these appointments.

Florida has a commission-based judicial appointment process wherein the governor appoints all members of the nominating commissions, with some of the governor's appointees come from candidate lists submitted by the Florida Bar. According to a new report, Governor Rick Scott often rejects the bar lists and requests additional names, unlike his predecessors Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush, who always accepted the bar's recommendations. And, the pace of these rejections is expected to rise.