The COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Task Force and the Bar’s Strategic Planning Committee participated in a virtual Design Thinking exercise to identify and target implementation strategies to combat future challenges to the legal profession.

While these challenges have been long-standing, they have most recently reverberated throughout both the Bench and Bar over the past year of this pandemic.  The exercise took place on February 24th and was facilitated by consulting firm Stonehill’s CEO, Douglass Pace.  The event dissected the results of the 2021 Florida Bar Member Survey.  The survey was emailed to 3,758 randomly selected Bar members, and 34% of the surveys were returned, according to Mike J. Garcia, the Bar’s director of Research, Planning & Evaluation.  For some analysis of the survey results, please review the Bar’s recent article here.

During the design thinking exercise, participants were divided into 4 Groups assigned specific focus areas to brainstorm.  Group 1 honed in on Diversity & Inclusion, Health & Welfare, and Work-Life Balance; Group 2 delved into Access to Justice/Pro Bono/Low Bono Delivery of Legal Service and New Ways of Practicing Law & Collaborative Law; Group 3 explored Technology, Remote WorkForce, Artificial Intelligence in Law, Cyber Security, and Attorney-Client Privilege; and Group 4 wrestled with Student Debt, Entering the Profession, and Law Schools and Law Students.  The Groups were shepherded through the design thinking process in order to populate ideas on a cloud-based white board to narrow down and prioritize tangible initiatives to propose for adoption.  The ideas raised in each group were then presented and collectively discussed towards the end of the day.  In the days and weeks to come, Stonehill will collate these ideas into a proposed strategy, with a timeline for deliverables, to be presented to the Board of Governors for deliberation and adoption.