Florida Bar President Rosalyn “Sia” Baker-Barnes knows the value of support. She had it from her family growing up in West Palm Beach. Her mother headed the corrections department in Palm Beach County. Her father, before becoming a circuit court judge, was an attorney at a powerhouse plaintiffs’ firm. He put her to work as a school kid doing office grunt work.
When she earned her law degree, she joined his old firm, Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, and found a culture both driven to succeed and supportive. In her 25 years in law, she won major catastrophic injury cases, earned top industry honors and became a firm shareholder while also, with her attorney husband Edrick E. Barnes, raising three children, now ages 12, 13 and 17.
No surprise, then, that one goal Baker-Barnes has for her year as Florida Bar president is fostering resilience among attorneys. Under her leadership, a Bar special committee is examining why attorneys succumb to the grind and give up practicing law. “We’re losing really good lawyers — just frustrated, burnt out,” she says. The committee will recommend policies, resources and programs to support lawyers as they handle difficulties not taught in law school and help them find fulfillment. “Being the Bar president gives you the ability to open doors for opportunity for our members to grow and thrive,” Baker-Barnes says.
To that end, she also created the Bar’s first “corporate counsel committee” — a twist considering she often makes her living by suing corporations. “We all have our jobs to do. We all represent our clients at the end of the day,” but opposing counsel still can have coffee or share a taxi together, she says. “I’m really close to a lot of my defense lawyers on cases.”
The first Black woman to be Florida Bar president — she also was the first Black woman to be Palm Beach County’s Bar president — Baker-Barnes earned her bachelor’s in communications from Florida State University and is a graduate of FSU’s College of Law. Baker-Barnes established a scholarship there for women law students wanting to be civil trial lawyers. She’s on FLORIDA TREND’S “Legal Elite” and U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Lawyers in America.” Along with her community volunteer work, she spent six years on the Bar’s Board of Governors, chaired its strategic planning, legislation and program evaluation committees and cochaired its COVID-19 pandemic recovery task force. She’s won the Bar president’s Award of Merit three times for service on the board. In 2022, she won the Bar’s Henry T. Latimer Diversity Award for her commitment to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.
Baker-Barnes will serve as president until June 2026. It’s clear she finds law fulfilling. She talks about meeting families at the worst time of their lives and being with them through the years it can take to resolve cases. “I love what I do,” she says. “I love being a practicing lawyer. It’s an opportunity for you to play a role in helping make that situation better.”