The Pandemic Recovery Task Force submitted its first report to the Florida Bar Board of Governors ahead of the Board’s August 24th meeting. Included in the report was an update on the YLD’s efforts to partner with the Bar’s Labor & Employment Section to host a free webinar on how the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting employment issues, including teleworking and employee health.

The webinar is tentatively scheduled for September 16th and will feature presenters on both the employer and employee sides of the various legal issues.

At the Task Force’s third meeting on August 25th, Chair and Bar President-Elect Michael Tanner discussed the YLD’s involvement in the Supreme Court-ordered Supervised Practice Program for law school graduates, currently unable to sit for the Bar due to the pandemic.  The YLD is working to match law school graduates with volunteer supervising attorneys in order for the former to begin gaining valuable practice experience.  Interested graduates and practitioners can be matched on the YLD’s website at /supervised-practice-program/.

Meanwhile, Bar President Dori Foster-Morales’ Virtual Town Halls in all of Florida’s judicial circuits continue. Anonymous surveys conducted via Zoom at each town hall have measured everything from member awareness and utilization of the new Florida Lawyers Helpline to the pandemic’s financial and psychological toll. Input from each circuits’ Bar members remains invaluable to informing the Bar’s pandemic recovery strategies going forward. Information on the remaining virtual town halls is available at https://www.floridabar.org/news/releases/2020-virtual-town-hall-meetings/.

For up-to-date news on the Bar’s COVID-19 response, please visit the Bar’s new coronavirus webpage: https://www.floridabar.org/news/releases/covid19/.