Law-related education: 30 years of dedication and vision.

As we celebrate the upcoming anniversary of The Florida Bar's Law Related Education Program, we reflect on 30 years of dedication and vision among countless legal professionals who believe they have a unique duty to educate citizens about the system that governs them.

This belief is profoundly important to maintaining and nurturing a vibrant democracy in our local communities, as well as across the state. Without it, the legal system is constantly at risk of appearing exclusive and detached from the average person's experience. Democracy suffers when citizens disengage from their governments, and this is exactly what the determined Florida Bar members and Florida Supreme Court justices understood when they teamed up to form The Florida Bar's Law Related Education Program (LRE).

Led by Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Ben Overton, a group of professionals assembled in 1976 to lay the framework the program. The overall mission was to create a means for attorneys and other legal professionals to get actively involved in educational projects across the state. Teaching Florida's young students and other citizens about the government quickly proved to be rewarding and fruitful for Bar members, and the LRE began growing quickly.

In January 1977, Ann Marie Karl became the law education coordinator on The Florida Bar staff. She worked with the Young Lawyers Section to write a law education textbook for use in Florida schools and to explore funding sources. Along with volunteer attorneys, she conducted summer workshops to train teachers, K-12, in law-related education. Training programs for law enforcement officers, law students, and other professionals expanded the learning opportunities.

The LRE's foundational years brought several successes. Not only did the Bar implement LRE in 63 of the 67 Florida school districts, but also within months of the program's inception, a resolution from the governor's cabinet was secured, and funding from a legislative mini-grant program was received.

Despite its fast development, the basic goal of the LRE has remained the same: to provide basic law literacy through casual, friendly dialogue between legal professionals and citizens of Florida.

As this idea caught on and LRE grew in proportion across the state, The Florida Bar continued to strengthen its partnership with the Supreme Court on the initiative. In 1985, a separate, nonprofit organization was formed called the Florida Law Related Education Association. With Annette Boyd Pitts as executive director, yet another opportunity was added for professionals to open the doors of the court and government system to those who may have been intimidated, misinformed, or even just curious about their government.

At the turn of the century, the LRE program renewed its mission of outreach and citizen engagement by joining with local and state governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals to host "Florida Leadership & Citizenship Day." This event marked the first of many to gather the widest range possible of educational and citizen-involvement opportunities on one inspirational day. We hope to make this event a tradition.

In what many consider to be a crowning achievement, this year the Bar under the leadership of Alan Bookman, immediate past president, succeeded in getting a much-needed initiative passed in the state legislature. The new law requires: "Three middle school or higher courses in social studies, one semester of which must include the study of state and federal government and civics education." While we could not be more thrilled with this development, the LRE program is not ready to rest on its many laurels.

With shockingly low governmental involvement among Americans and an ever-present cynicism toward the legal profession, the LRE has plenty of work to do ahead. In celebrating successes over the past 30 years and looking forward to a future full of great strides, The Florida Bar renews its commitment to educating our state's citizens and helping them take the power that is rightfully theirs.