WMU Cooley Law Review interviews Greg Coleman
The President of the Florida Bar talks about technology, the bar exam, diversity, access to
justice, and ethics.
Jerrod Simpson, a member of the Western Michigan University Cooley Law Review interviews Greg Coleman,
partner at Critton, Luttier, and Coleman,a law firm in West Palm Beach, Florida, and current President of the
Florida Bar. This interview has been edited and condensed. The full audio version is also available on the Law
Review’s website.
Q: The Cooley Law Review has been really focused on technology and the economy. How would you
say, in regard to these topics, that the practice of law has changed in the last five years, and where do
you see it headed in the future?
A: The Florida Bar created a three-year commission to look at four discrete areas in the practice of law, all of
which we initially thought were individual silos. We have come to realize, a year and a half into the process,
that they are not individual silos; they are all connected and interrelated. The name of the commission is Vision
2016. It's unique in the sense that it's never been done in the country—mostly because every year every
mandatory bar has a new president, and that president may have their own agenda. We got together with
three Presidents in a row—Jean Pettits, me, and my president-elect, Ray Aberdeen—and we agreed to do this
over a three-year stretch so that we could study the future of technology, access to justice, bar admissions
(meaning multistate admissions), and law schools. And like I said, we very quickly realized that they’re all
interrelated.
Technology has invaded our lives both personally and professionally, and it’s drastically affected the way we
practice law. For example, 15 years ago, if Sally had a noncompete problem, Sally would walk into my office
with bewilderment in her eyes because she literally did not have the ability to find out if her noncompete
agreement is enforceable. I would listen to her describe the facts. I had the keys to the magical books. I knew
how they worked, and I could go look at the law, compare the law to the facts, and give her advice on how to
handle the issue or the problem. She literally was unable to get answers to her questions anywhere short of
trying to go to a law library and figure out how the magical books work.
Fast forward to today: Sally walks into my office and has a noncompete problem. What has she done before
she walked into my office? She has Googled or searched the terms noncompete agreements, termination in
Florida, termination for cause, or a combination of those terms, and she has reviewed and digested as much
information as she had time to review and digest. So she is now armed with information. Is it good
information? I don’t know if it’s good information. Is it accurate? I don’t know. Does it matter? No. It’s
information. She already has perceptions about this noncompete problem because she has searched on the
internet. So it’s creating chaos for lawyers (1) who don’t have the foresight to search their area of practice just
to know what these people are reading online and (2) to anticipate the questions and concerns.
People are accessing information like never before, so they can get information like never before. And nonlawyers are starting to invade the traditional practice areas that lawyers occupied for hundreds of years—for
example, transactional lawyers.
Transactional lawyers draft confidentiality agreements and nondisclosure agreements. How long does this take,
and how much does it cost? Well, the client comes in. They give me the facts; they give me what I'm supposed
to protect; they talk about the company; they give me the names of the people that are going to sign it. I use the
skeleton of an agreement, but I make it specifically applicable to their set of facts and circumstances. I review
it; they review it; we make changes; and we put it in final form. I sign it; they sign it; the other side signs it; and
the whole process can take upwards of a week. It costs $1000 to $2000 ballpark.
But today, we can enter into a confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement in three minutes. How? Through an
app called Shake. Shake contains legal forms—you insert what you're trying to protect, the consequences of
what happens if you disclose, and the names of the parties or the companies. You electronically sign the
document in three minutes, and you have an agreement. Guess how much it costs? It’s free.
Q: Wow, that is really empowering people to take things into their own hands, which is great. But for
lawyers and law students it's cutting out job opportunities. So is there a balance between this? Is this
good or bad? Or maybe we just do not need as many lawyers?
A: Well, I would suggest that, first of all, it is never a good idea to trust a free document that has not been
tested by the courts! The issue is that the types of people that are using these documents and these forms and
these programs are generally not the people that can afford a lawyer’s services anyway. The person that’s
buying a $10 million business isn't going to use this. They’re going to go to a lawyer and make sure they're
protected. And if that lawyer does not protect them, they can go after malpractice insurance. So the people
that are using these services now are not the clients that we would have anyway.
But, yes, it is affecting the way we practice, and it’s going to continue to change the way we practice. And
lawyers are going to have to adapt. They are going to have to practice in areas where traditional lawyers are
always going to be needed, or they are going to have to be more creative with what it is they choose to do with
their law degree. And that may not necessarily be a traditional legal job.
Q: Could you speak to some new technology and software products that are available for lawyers and
law students to use?
A: Many of the law students that are coming out of school, in Florida, are passing the bar and can’t get
jobs. They have a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt. They have families to support, and they need to
make money. So, many of them open up their own shop. Although the millennials are tech-savvy, they don't
necessarily know what type of technology they need to open and run a law practice. Nor do they really know
how that practice works.
So we're dedicating a part of our website to technology tools and solutions and also practice assistance. It will
provide information such as how to get clients, how to brand, how to advertise if you want to advertise, how to
set up and maintain a trust account, and how to avoid a bar complaint. And on the technology side, we are
going to have a recommended technology platform. So, if young lawyers want to open their own law firm, they
can go to this part of the website, see what type of recommended hardware there is, what type of
recommended software, recommended ancillary devices, and programs that are helpful for the lawyer’s
practice.
We are also going to provide a low-cost IT consulting service. So if a young lawyer opens his law office and
one day there is a problem with his PC—if you’re a solo practitioner, you’re shutdown—you are not working
that day. And technology consultants are very expensive if you go out and hire someone. So this is going to
be a member benefit that is very low cost.
Q: Recently, some attorneys have requested raising the fees for admission to the Bar in order to
increase the funding to legal aid programs. What are the pros and cons of that solution? Does the
Florida Bar have any other alternative plans in mind to increase the people’s ability to access justice?
A: In Florida, our funding for legal aid programs dropped from a high of $70 million in 2006 to $5 million today,
and that is because the funding is tied to trust-account interest that is generated in the State and, of course,
interest rates. If they could be negative, they probably would be. But they’re at historic lows. So the funding
has evaporated.
On the other hand, last year in Florida, lawyers provided 1.7 million hours of free legal services to the poor and
disadvantaged. At a $250 hourly rate—which is about middle of the road in Florida—that is just shy of half-a-
billion-dollars worth of attorney time. We are the only profession in the world that does that. And we’re proud
of it. It’s part of what we need to do. But access to justice can't be solved by lawyers. It is a societal problem
and a societal issue.
So in Florida, we are going to have an access-to-justice commission that is created by our Supreme Court.
This commission is not going to do a study or draft a report; this commission is comprised of 24 very high-level
people statewide, from every branch of the government, from all of the courts, and, most importantly, six or
seven of the members are very high-level statewide business leaders. People whose companies you know
right off the top of your head if you live in Florida.
And the purpose of having the business community involved is two-fold. Number one, it is to educate them on
this access-to-justice issue. A lot of people define access as just indigent or those that don’t make enough
money and qualify for legal aid. But the real problem in this country is the working middle class, the 60% of the
people that need access to the courts but make too much money to qualify for legal aid. They're making $50k
or $60k a year for a family of four—two kids, a mom, and a dad; if they get divorced, they’re living paycheck-topaycheck. They can’t afford a lawyer—even a lawyer at $100 an hour. So they navigate the court system
themselves—a system that is not designed for a person who is not a lawyer to navigate. We need to come up
with some access programs that address the population that cannot afford lawyers but still needs access to our
courts.
This commission educates the business community about the significance of access and how important it is. If
they have an employee that is getting divorced and navigating the court system themselves, that employee is
frustrated, angry, or depressed, and not focusing—It's affecting their work and their job, and it’s affecting the
profitability of the company. We need to engage the business community to educate them.
Q: Do you think that the Florida Bar exam will become more difficult in the future?
A: Florida’s bar exam is known as one of the toughest in the country. It tests on 28 separate practice areas,
including things like juvenile dependency, commercial paper, securities—substantive practice areas that you
may never look at again after you take the bar exam. So our bar exam is already plenty tough.
Instead, we are looking at the law schools and trying to come up with ways for them to be more creative in their
third-year curriculum to provide more practice-oriented education and direction. There are all kinds of creative
things law schools can do. They can use a medical model like residencies, externships, or internships. But
guess what? In Florida, law students won't do it. Why? Because if they do the internship and they don’t pass
the bar, the internship is not going to help them. If they take commercial paper, they may have an edge in
passing the bar.
Now, there’s a movement nationwide called the Uniform Bar Exam. The states that have switched to the
Uniform Bar Exam seem to be very happy with it. It seems to test enough substantive law that you can get a
flavor for whether or not this person is appropriate to practice in your state. All the states that had additional
state requirements have done away with them, and so the Uniform Bar Exam, if it becomes the Bar Exam in
New York, you’ll see all the areas around New York fall as well. New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Virginia—all
those areas in the Northeast. They’re going to fall and go to the Uniform Bar Exam, which means that,
ultimately, the rest of the country may have to go to a type of uniform bar exam. And if that happens, we don't
have borders anymore. All you’re going to have is character and fitness evaluations for individual states, and
you can go practice wherever you want. And so, that's coming. I don't think that making the bar exam more
difficult is the answer.
I think the law schools have an ethical obligation—a moral obligation—to tell law students before they start
taking their student loans out that if you have not researched the market, you need to. You may want to think
about waiting. You may want to think about other alternatives because right now half of you will not get jobs.
Q: How does diversity in the legal profession affect the overall confidence in the justice system?
A: The Florida Bar has been on the leading edge of diversity and inclusion for years. I formed the first diversity
committee in Florida when I was part of the Young Lawyers Division about 15 years ago. Society is a melting
pot. This country is a melting pot, and we need to embrace our differences and our similarities.
If you have a court system that has judges that are 80% white males, that doesn't reflect the makeup of
society—of our society in Florida. People gain trust when they feel that their background is being represented
through the courts, whether it’s ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation—you go right down the line of diversity
issues. So when you walk into a courthouse and you see an African-American woman judge, a Hispanic male
judge, a gay judge, and you go right down the line, it gives people comfort that the court system reflects society
in terms of the decision makers, and that's critical for building trust.
Q: Do you think that we could increase trust in the functions of the justice system if people directly
elected high-level judges?
A: No, I think elected judges are one of the worst things for our system. I don't believe in elected judges
because the canons in Florida basically limit anything that they can say of substance.
Q: So would the negatives that come from the political pressures of running a campaign outweigh any
positives of the people having a say in electing someone that was potentially more representative of
the community?
A: Judicial elections are a nightmare. More and more people are spending more and more money to get
elected to a position that pays $143,000 a year, and they get the funding for their campaigns almost 100% from
lawyers, so there’s an inherent conflict there to begin with. I don’t think the judges like it, and I know the lawyers
don’t like it. I do not like it. And I can tell you that in Florida, the Judicial Qualifications Committee, which is the
oversight group for judges who have misbehaved—something like 90% of the judges that flow through there
are elected versus appointed. And there’s a reason for that.
On the merit-selection side, there’s a Judicial Nominating Commission that is made up of nine people—a very
diverse group of very experienced lawyers and lay people. They vet lawyers who apply to be judges. Then
they send the most qualified and diverse applicants to the governor, and the governor must select one. So
they are almost prequalified. The commission is saying that these people have high ethical standards and are
professional. For the most part, they turn out to be really good judges. Judicial elections are a terrible idea.
Q: Well on the topic of ethics, what are the most common mistakes that you see lawyers make that
result in disbarment?
A: I think the more important question to ask is “what is the most common mistake lawyers and young lawyers
make that results in grievances being filed?” This question is more relevant because chances of them getting
disbarred are hopefully really slim.
In Florida, the number one grievance against lawyers—and there's no close second—is failure to adequately
communicate with clients: not returning phone calls, not keeping clients informed as to the status of their case,
and not communicating with them in general.
In my office, I copy my client on everything, every letter. And now in the electronic age, it doesn’t even cost you
anything. You don’t even have to put a stamp on anything. I copy my client on every letter incoming and
outgoing unless they send me—in writing—an email saying, “Stop copying me on all of this. I don’t want to see
it.” I regularly update them on what is going on, and I return all of my telephone calls within 24 hours about
95% of the time.
In terms of the thing to gets lawyers disbarred in Florida, there is really one and only one way to guarantee that
you are going to lose your license. And that is touching money in your trust account.
You touch a dime in your trust account that you shouldn't be touching—let’s say you take a quarter out to put
money in the meter—you are going to lose your law license.
What has been the most rewarding thing for you as President of the Florida Bar?
The most rewarding thing about being the President of the Florida Bar, unquestionably, is the ability to meet so
many really neat people. I have met so many lawyers—I was on the cover of the Florida Bar Journal, so they
recognize my face sometimes—and they walk up to me when I’m in Tampa and say, “Hey, you’re Greg
Coleman! How are you doing? I’d like to talk to you about something.” Otherwise, that lawyer would never walk
up to me in a million years.
And so I get to hear an awful lot of really neat things. I also get my fair share of having my ear chewed out
about one issue or another, but that is the exception. It is really enjoyable. I am a people person, and I love to
engage with people. That is clearly the best benefit of the job.