Where Are The Criminal Lawyers In State Bar Associations?

We have 85,000 lawyers in the Florida Bar. Someone once did some research and found that 4,500 of those lawyers had filed notices of appearance in a criminal case. I've always heard that "less than 10%" of lawyers practice criminal law, so the numbers make sense.

In terms of committees that are relevant to criminal lawyers, the Florida Bar has a Criminal Law Section and a Criminal Procedure Rules Committee. There's also a Traffic Court Rules Committee, Rules of Evidence Committee and Appellate Rules Committee.

Over the past few years, the Florida Supreme Court has given more power to the Rules of Judicial Administration Committee to make rules regarding criminal practice. There are about 30 members on that committee - 3 are criminal lawyers.

I've been on a Florida Bar committee for over 10 years. I started my Bar involvement on the local young lawyers board, joining as the only criminal lawyer among 17 lawyers. When I was on a Florida Bar Grievance Committee, I was the only criminal defense lawyer. There were 3 prosecutors, and the rest, civil lawyers from BigLaw who never had a client, and didn't understand how criminal law worked.

Bar associations are overwhelmingly made up of civil lawyers. No surprise why - BigLaw loves to have their lawyers involved. Criminal lawyers are either prosecutors, public defenders or solo or small firm. There are time factors, cost factors in traveling to these meetings, and most prevalent, a feeling that the Bar is the government. We are required to be a member of the bar, and we have to pay our "taxes" (dues). It's just another "thing" to advocate "against."

When I go to the Bar meetings, the divide between civil and criminal lawyers is immediately apparent. The criminal lawyers are the ones who realize they are not in court, and dress accordingly - open collar, no jacket, an occasional suit on the lawyer who ran to the meeting from court. The civil lawyers, dressed to the hilt.

Due to dwindling attendance, the Florida Bar recently combined the annual criminal awards luncheon with the civil lawyers luncheon. In this, the second year, the luncheon began with a quip from a prosecutor at the podium that the criminal lawyers "are all seated over here, and you can talk to them, they don't bite." Cute comment, but that's how the room was seated - criminal lawyers amongst themselves.

Even in the criminal defense lawyers associations - less than half the criminal lawyers are members, except in Oregon, where they have 100% membership, and have more power in the legislature than the prosecutors.

Civil lawyers get it. They know that being involved in the process, at every level, only helps their Bar. Criminal lawyers are divided. There is the group that believes a criminal lawyer's job is to go to court, all day every day, and do nothing else. They believe the legislature and the Bar are governmental agencies that are to be avoided. They believe that anyone involved is a "self-promoter," only looking for something. What has always made me giggle a bit, is that this is the group that sends mailers to people's homes when they get arrested, buys the big yellow pages ads, advertises themselves on bus benches and billboards, and yet says those that join a Bar committee are "self-promoters."

I often wonder what the Bar would look like if every committee had a few criminal lawyers. I often wonder what the legislature would look like if there were a few real criminal defense lawyers - not the ones who are former prosecutors and call themselves "white collar" lawyers at BigLaw.

I know, we don't get elected, we aren't welcome at the Bar.

It's not true, it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're criminal lawyers, we don't need an invitation - we need to barge in and speak up.

Do we really want civil lawyers making decisions on criminal practice?

The state bar associations will dump on criminal lawyers if they are not more active. It only takes one voice to stop a bad idea, to stop a new rule from changing how we practice law.

This notion that we need to just deal with what comes down the pike and fight our cases in court is ridiculous. We need to be at the table, we need to stop trains from leaving the station.

I have examples of criminal lawyers, one, criminal lawyer making a difference in legislative and Bar proposals. I won't mention them here, but suffice to say, it's happened, more than once.

You can say "screw the legislature," and "screw the Bar," all you want.

But as you sit back and tell them to screw you, they are.

Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court, and the author of The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Post to Twitter