President Khurrum Wahid unveiled the prototype of our next-generation website at the May 12th General Body Meeting.

The new website is now live and our contractor will continue to tweak it over time. The website, which is informally being referred to as Website 2.0, contains news feeds, videos, a "find a lawyer" database, an online calendar, event postings, a membership page containing an application and dues payment option, an option to join the FMBA-Net email listserv and an opportunity for dues-paying members to publish articles in their practice areas. At this time, the FMBA-NEt list-serv will continue to be a free service to members as well as associated attorneys and law students.

Plans for "Website 3.0" are already being discussed. Ideas include a members-only section containing a forms bank, forum and a page for posting jobs, internships and resumes.

Special thanks go out to Omar Ali and IntelliPlans for putting together this excellent website.

By Jan Pudlow

Senior Editor

When Asad Ba-Yunus was an assistant state attorney in Miami-Dade County, he was put in a unique bind when criminal trials fell on Fridays.

On Fridays, Muslim men must perform the weekend congregational prayer called the Jumu'ah Prayer, and he would rush to a mosque in Kendall for the sermon and prayer that began at 1:30 p.m, and hurry back to court.

“We will ask judges to give an extended lunch,” explained Ba-Yunus, now a trial attorney practicing medical malpractice defense and general liability at Lubell & Rosen in Ft. Lauderdale.

“A lot of judges will let you do it and some judges find it peculiar. But it’s like going to church on Sunday for us.”

(TALLAHASSEE, FL 2/14/2008) - After a meeting Tuesday with state and national Muslim leaders in Tallahassee, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum agreed to establish a Muslim community advisory group, and today reached out to the Florida Muslim Bar Association, the state's only professional association of Muslim attorneys, to help coordinate and participate in such a group.

Tuesday's meeting came about as Muslim civil rights groups expressed concern that the Attorney General appeared to be promoting a film that enforced negative stereotypes about Muslim Americans. The film, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" was recently the subject of controversy when played at the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. Among other things, the film portrays mainstream Muslims as a potential terrorist threat. The Muslim community objected to the film being promoted by an elected public servant as means of educating the Attorney General's staff about "radical Islam".