The Florida Bar's Animal Law Committee Needs Your Help

Attn:  Florida Lawyers
The Florida Bar's Animal Law Committee Needs Your Help!

 
What is the Animal Law Committee?
The Animal Law Committee (ALC) monitors and informs the members of the Florida Bar and the public of significant developments in the area of animal law. The ALC takes an ac-tive role in communicating about and reviewing proposed legislative changes and holds an annual seminar addressing animal law issues, including how such issues affect more tradi-tional legal practice areas. We meet at least three times a year to share new information regarding this practice area. In general, the ALC brings together attorneys who have differ-ent backgrounds and experience with regard to a variety of animal law issues. 

The ALC’s current goal
The ALC is in the midst of a membership drive to help reach section status. This is an op-portunity to make a real difference in animal law and with minimal effort. The Florida Bar has made it clear membership must increase before we submit a request to become a sec-tion. Section status is a critical goal. Section status will also allow us to engage in a num-ber of activities that we are currently prohibited or restricted from pursuing, including but not limited to increasing publications and drafting and supporting legislation. It will allow us to make a far greater impact in animal law.

How you can assist the ALC.
Join the ALC. Preference forms to join the Committee become available in December and the window to join is normally open from December 1 to approximately January 14. We request that attorneys with an interest in this legal area email Gil Panzer at gil@gilpanzerlaw.com and commit to complete the committee preference form in Decem-ber with a request to be on the ALC. We further request that attorneys contact as many other attorneys as possible to let them know about joining the ALC. You will be added to the ALC email distribution list so that you receive reminders when the window to file pref-erence forms opens.

Thank you for your help.

The Florida Bar has approximately 96,511 members currently. Quite often, we hear Bar members state they had no idea there was an animal law committee. For this reason, we are hopeful many more Bar members exist who are interested in the committee and will join. If we all help spread the word and emphasize the importance of our current member-ship drive, we can succeed. We sincerely hope those of you working in an office will ask your colleagues if they know about the ALC and are interested in joining.