Florida Bar Courts Booming, Untapped In-House Legal Sector

Thousands of attorneys in Florida who work in-house for the state’s growing number of corporations have never had their own place within the ranks of the state bar. But it may be a plaintiff-side lawyer who turns the tide.

The Florida Bar’s new president, Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes, is trying to crack a code that has puzzled state bars for decades: how to drive engagement from corporate lawyers while minding their special considerations for networking and reputation protection. Baker-Barnes, a shareholder at Searcy Denney, has made courting corporate attorneys a cornerstone of her year-long term helming the 100,000-member organization.

“There’s so much growth in Florida, and really every one of these companies has a legal department,” said Baker-Barnes, who became the bar’s first Black woman president on June 27. “We’re missing a whole sector of our industry and an important sector in our economy.”

Florida Bar President Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes

Courtesy of The Florida Bar

Roughly 100 lawyers—most whom had never attended a Florida Bar function—gathered on June 25 for a day of corporate counsel-specific events at the group’s Boca Raton annual meeting. A new Corporate Counsel Committee within the bar also has garnered buy-in from attorneys with companies like Coca-Cola, Del Monte Foods, Citibank, and Universal Property and Casualty Insurance.

“Florida’s economy is changing from the traditional triad of agriculture, real estate and tourism to more of a corporate environment, especially in the southeast and I-4 corridor,” across the middle of the state, Manuel Farach, a Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP shareholder and Corporate Counsel Committee vice chair, told Bloomberg Law.

This has presented the opportunity to attract hundreds more in-house lawyers to Florida state bar events, which could benefit from the expertise of top lawyers in the state’s more than 20 Fortune 500 companies, Baker-Barnes said. She also wants to target the roughly 1,500 specially “authorized counsel” allowed to practice in Florida despite not passing the state’s bar exam, because they serve as corporate counsel for in-state businesses.

“Friends that are in-house counsel repeatedly said to me there’s nothing for us at the bar,” said Baker-Barnes.

Cracking the Code

Corporate counsel are generally one-client lawyers, and many businesses view their in-house legal team as a necessary but expensive cost of business.

These factors weigh against paying for in-house counsel to join and attend state bar events. Companies are also cautious about their attorneys sitting on a panel and saying something that could open their business to liability, or perk up the ears of plaintiff-side lawyers.

For these and other reasons, national groups like the Association of Corporate Counsel have mostly filled in the vacuum to provide training, continuing legal education, and networking spaces catering to in-house lawyers where they can connect with defense counsel they might later hire for outside work.

Additionally, getting in-house lawyers in the door is getting harder, due to ongoing economic uncertainty.

Shifting tariff policies have resulted in businesses pulling back on expenses and restricting reimbursement for corporate counsel networking events and travel, said Dean Martinez, CEO of DRI, the country’s largest bar association for defense counsel and in-house attorneys.

“You have to make a value proposition and it can’t just be a discount card, it’s got to be something of value, and that’s going to be key when it comes to a corporation,” said Martinez.

In-house attendance can be driven through programming and perks. Invite-only meetings, free conference space for in-house lawyers, and creating “safe spaces” by making conference attendees certify they do primarily defense work, are all ways DRI is trying to bring in the corporate counsel crowd.

After months of surveying in-house lawyers across the state, Florida’s Corporate Counsel Committee thinks it can crack that nut with its tailored programming.

Feedback from their event indicated the training, insider insights from Tallahassee lobbyists, and big-name speakers like Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium general counsel Myles Pistorius, all scored highly with attendees. The group is planning similar events throughout the year.

Committee co-chair Grasford Washington Smith Jr., a partner at Akerman, said the renewed focus is already attracting in-house lawyers looking to get involved.

“These are brilliant lawyers advising billion dollar companies and they felt unseen by the bar,” Baker-Barnes said during her presidential swearing-in speech on June 27. “We now have a place for them.”