A year in the spotlight.

Simmons, Barnett reflect on their roles as national leaders

Florida's leading ladies of the law -- Martha Barnett and Evett Simmons -- recently concluded year-long presidencies of national bars. Aglow with pride in their many accomplishments, mixed with sighs of relief that their whirlwind reigns are over, they paused to reflect on their experiences.

"It was really allconsuming, and many times I wished there were more hours in the day. There were so many things I wanted to do," said Barnett, immediate past president of the American Bar Association, who considers her major achievement to be the weighty mission of calling for a moratorium on executions and elevating the national debate on the death penalty.

Simmons, settling back into her routine in Port St. Lucie, said it has taken her a month and a half to recuperate from her busy agenda as president of the National Bar Association. Her projectpacked year included jumping into the fray in lending a voice to disenfranchised voters in what she calls the presidential "Election Fiasco," to speaking out against racial profiling, to helping "grow lawyers of color."

An unexpected added stress in her last days as president was holding the NBA 76th convention at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Dallas, despite a nationwide boycott against the chain called just 17 days earlier by NAACP President Kweisi Mfume.

At that NBA convention, where controversy swirled, there was solidarity among Florida's two key women lawyers as Simmons presented Barnett with a presidential award.

"When Martha and I were both president-elects, we pledged to forge a partnership between our two associations that would result in increasing the awareness of civil and criminal issues facing people, and particularly children of color," Simmons said.

That pledge reaped a joint report by the ABA and NBA -- "Justice by Gender: The Lack of Appropriate Prevention, Diversion and Treatment Alternatives for Girls in the Justice System" -- released on Law Day at a joint news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

While the juvenile crime rate, overall, is going down, the number of girls in the system has skyrocketed -- an 83 percent increase since 1987. Yet there are few facilities and programs specifically aimed to help the girls, many of whom have been sexually and physically abused. Girls represent 27 percent of youth under 18 in the justice system. Of the girls arrested, two-thirds are of color, and nearly half are African Americans.

"These numbers are frightening, because African Americans make up less than 13 percent of the population of the country," Simmons said.

"If we lose our youth, our race and economic empowerment will be irrelevant," Simmons said.

Barnett said the continuing effort is trying to figure out what is going wrong: "Are we losing a generation of girls?"

Ticking off the many NBA initiatives that focused on children, Simmons said, "Our children should be proud of us this year."