Should judges be required to grant continuances for parental leave? Florida considers a rule change
Florida lawyers who believe judges should be required to grant continuances for parental leave aren’t giving up the fight.
The Florida Bar’s Rules of Judicial Administration Committee turned aside a proposed rule that would generally require continuances for paternity and maternity leave, but supported judicial education on the issue, Law.com reports. Now backers of a mandatory rule hope to take their quest to the Florida Bar’s Board of Governors.
The original, proposed rule said judges “shall” grant continuances for parental leave “unless exceptional circumstances are shown,” according to the article. The Rules of Judicial Administration Committee decided against pursuing that version of the rule in January, and also rejected a more lenient version in June. The second version said a court “should exercise its discretion to grant the requested continuance unless the opposing party would be substantially prejudiced.”
Critics of the proposed rule say judges should have discretion in deciding whether to grant continuances, whether it’s for parental leave or for other family needs. They also say the rule could be abused by lawyers hoping to buy more time in a case. And they worry that a mandatory rule could hamstring judges who are trying to run an efficient docket.
One of the rule supporters is Deborah Baker-Egozi, a Greenspoon Marder partner in Miami and a member of the Florida Bar’s Board of Governors. “When women are leaving the profession in droves during childbearing years, I think we need to give practicing attorneys the benefit of the doubt that they are not going to misuse this continuance policy,” she told Law.com.
A proposal to create a task force to discuss the rule will go to the Florida Bar’s executive committee, which will decide whether to place the task-force proposal on the agenda of the Florida board of governors on July 29. The task force would consist of members of the Rules of Judicial Administration Committee and the bar’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which had supported the proposed rule.
