A Publication of the Orange County
Bar Association
Inside this Issue: President’s Message How I Got Here and What I Learned Once I Did...Or, As My Dad Would Say, “Remember Who You Are and What You Represent” Thomas A. Zehnder June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
OCBA June Luncheon Mayanne Downs President, The Florida Bar
Business Law Committee Secrets Revealed: Fundamental Steps to Pleading and Proving a Trade Secret Claim in Florida – Part I Christopher A. Pace 2011 Gala Photo Spread
FINANCIALCONFIDENCESHOWS
“I spend my time working on my cases, not my banking.” If you’re taking too much time away from your practice to manage your banking, contact an M&I Banker.
Preferred Banking Institution and Proud Sponsor of the Orange County Bar Association
Regardless of the size of your practice, your dedicated M&I Banker will help you make knowledgeable financial decisions about cash flow, remote deposit capture, business checking and more. We can also help you manage your personal finances, too. Contact us today.
Personal | Business & Commercial | Wealth Management Member FDIC Products and services subject to bank/credit approval. ©2010 Marshall & Ilsley Corporation 10-301-068
Revision # 1
Size Flat: 7.5 x 10
Folded: NA
Inks 4 color
Christopher Dale Preferred Banker 407-513-9590 Orlando
Tom Bacchus Commercial Banker 407-648-2141 Orlando
“THE PARTNERS FIGURED THEY COULD GIVE ME MORE WORK NOW. TURNS OUT THEY‘RE RIGHT.” BRENT KIMBALL, ASSOCIATE GREENSPOON MARDER, P.A. ORLANDO
One reason WestlawNext™ helps you get more done is that it’s powered by our new search engine – WestSearch™, which leverages the Key Number System and other West assets to streamline the search process. In fact, it helps reduce your research time by up to 64 percent, while still assuring that you haven’t missed anything important. Hear what Brent and other customers are saying – and see details of the efficiency study yourself – at WestlawNext.com.
© 2010 Thomson Reuters L-361642/8-10 Thomson Reuters and the Kinesis logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 1
the Briefs
Contents
©2011
3
Co-Editors Allison C. McMillen & Suzanne D. Meehle
20
President’s Message How I Got Here and What I Learned Once I Did...Or, As My Dad Would Say, “Remember Who You Are and What You Represent” Thomas A. Zehnder
YLS on the Move Jacquelynne J. Regan
Associate Editors Nick Dancaescu & Diana M. Serrano
21
Side Bar Columnist Sunny Lim Hillary
25
YLS Columnist Jacquelynne J. Regan
2011 Gala Photo Spread
4
Summer Tire Safety Henry Didier
Professionalism Committee Remarks by Penelope B. Perez-Kelly Upon Receiving the 2011 Lawrence G. Mathews, Jr. Young Lawyer Professionalism Award
w OFFICERS Thomas A. Zehnder, President Kristyne E. Kennedy, President-Elect Paul J. Scheck, Treasurer Nicholas A. Shannin, Secretary
26
SideBar Sunny L. Hillary
28
5
What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers and Judges: Wisdom from Plato to Mark Twain to Stephen King – Part II Douglas E. Abrams
OCBA June Luncheon Mayanne Downs President, The Florida Bar
7
w EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Wiley S. Boston Mary Ann Etzler Elizabeth F. McCausland Nichole M. Mooney Jamie Billotte Moses Eric C. Reed Gary S. Salzman William D. Umansky William C. Vose Kimberly D. Webb Esther M. Whitehead Frank M. Bedell, Ex Officio LaShawnda K. Jackson, YLS President
34
OCBA 2011-2012 Officers & Executive Council
Rainmaking Managing Client Perceptions Equals Good Client Development Mark Powers and Shawn McNalis
11
Bruce B. Blackwell to Receive The Florida Bar Foundation’s 2011 Medal of Honor for a Lawyer
36
New Members
12
41
Construction Law Committee Dealing with a DBPR Investigation against a Licensed Contractor Fred R. Dudley
Announcements
43
w
Classifieds
14
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Brant S. Bittner w
44
Sara E. Trollinger 2011 Liberty Bell Award Recipient
Calendar
Communications Manager Peggy Storch
16
Business Law Committee Secrets Revealed: Fundamental Steps to Pleading and Proving a Trade Secret Claim in Florida – Part I Christopher A. Pace
Marketing Manager Mente Piccoli Marketing Assistant William M. Remensnyder
DEADLINE INFORMATION
Advertising - 10th of the month prior to the month of publication Copy - 15th of the month six weeks prior to the month of publication If the deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline is the next business day. Publication of advertising herein does not imply any endorsement of any product, service or opinion advertised. The opinions and conclusions, including legal opinions and conclusions contained in articles appearing in The Briefs, are those of the authors and do not reflect any official endorsement of these views by the Orange County Bar Association or its officers and directors, unless specifically stated as such. All contents ©2011 Orange County Bar Association. All rights reserved. Designer: Catherine E. Hebert Cover photo: MorgueFiles.com ISSN 1947-3968
PAGE 2
www.orangecountybar.org
Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Program 407-649-1833 880 North Orange Avenue • Orlando, FL 32801 (407) 422-4551 • Fax (407) 843-3470 Legal Aid Society Citizen Dispute Family Law Mediation Lawyer Referral Service Legal Placement Service Young Lawyers Section
407-841-8310 407-423-5732 407-422-4551 407-422-4537 407-422-4551 407-422-4551
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
President’sMessage
June 2011
How I Got Here and What I Learned Once I Did ... Or, As My Dad Would Say, “Remember Who You Are and What You Represent.”
A Thomas A. Zehnder
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
s I sit here penning my very first “President’s Message,” I confess that I find myself wondering how it is that I became president of the Orange County Bar Association (indeed – many of you may be asking the very same question!). The story actually goes all the way back to May of 1991. I had just graduated from college, and my parents had moved to Orlando from Stuart, where I grew up. I didn’t know anyone in Orlando, and I was returning “home” with a wonderful degree in finance, but with no job and in the heart of a recession. I’m sure you can imagine how thrilled my parents were! At the time I was pretty low – here I was an unemployed college graduate, in debt, and living at home with my folks. Certainly not an ideal situation. Ironically, it turned out to be one of the greatest turning points in my life. That’s because in June of 1991 I decided to go to law school. The prospect of law school had always intrigued me, but I really hadn’t given it serious consideration, especially while I was enjoying the college experience, when I didn’t give anything serious consideration. (I’m always so amazed and impressed by people who say they knew from an early age what they wanted to do in life – my experience was markedly different. In fact, there was a time in my young life when my older sisters referred to me as the ne’er-do-well “Uncle Buck,” after the great John Candy character.) It’s funny how a slow job market and the prospect of living with your parents can bring you clarity of thought, and even some ambition. Law school suddenly made a whole lot of sense. And then I made another significant decision. I quickly realized that I had never actually stepped foot inside a law office, and it occurred to me that I should probably find out what working in one was like before I borrowed the money to go law school. That turned out to be a particularly inspired decision, because it led me to answer an ad in the Orlando Sentinel for the runner position at a small firm called King & Blackwell, P.A. I remember like it was yesterday interviewing with Kay Weaver – the firm’s office manager – in what was then the small conference room and is now Kim Healy’s office. Fortunately, I somehow fooled Kay into offering me the position, and I accepted it immediately. Over the next year, I watched David King, Bruce
www.orangecountybar.org
Blackwell, and Mayanne Downs practice law together in a way that was truly inspiring. I saw how clients came to them in dire circumstances and in great need of help. I saw how my future partners treated their clients with courtesy, and with respect, and how they really listened to what their clients said. I saw how they helped their clients grapple with problems that at times seemed overwhelming and even insurmountable, and how they worked together to find solutions. Watching them, I knew that was what I wanted to do. While in law school, I kept in touch with my King & Blackwell family, and after my second year they took a second chance on me by hiring me as a summer law clerk. A few months before law school graduation in 1995, Bruce came up to Gainesville and took me to dinner. He explained he was there on behalf of the firm to offer me an associate position. I was overjoyed and immediately accepted my third King & Blackwell job offer. Yes, the “King & Blackwell Runner Advancement Program” has been a great success. (Well, I certainly see it that way). **** My dad – the greatest man I have ever known – is a Lutheran pastor, and his dad and his brothers are, too. He never pressured me to join the ministry. Instead, he told me that whatever I did for a living, I should do it in a way that makes a difference in peoples’ lives. In that regard, he would always say to me (and still does), “Tom, remember who you are and what you represent.” David, Bruce, and Mayanne taught me how to honor my dad’s charge as a lawyer. One of the ways they did that was to stress the importance of bar work. Becoming active in the OCBA has allowed me to grow as a practitioner, hone my advocacy skills, and develop personal relationships that benefit my practice and make me a better lawyer. Bar work has also taught me the importance of practicing with professionalism, a proud hallmark of the OCBA, which defines its very mission as the promotion of “honor, dignity, service, truth, and professionalism.” I’ve learned that these principles are not mere aspirational goals – they are guidelines that we must all adopt and implement in our daily practice. As a zealous advocate, the continued page 8
PAGE 3
ProfessionalismCommittee Remarks by Penelope B. Perez-Kelly Upon Receiving the 2011 Lawrence G. Mathews, Jr. Young Lawyer Professionalism Award
W Penelope B. Perez-Kelly
PAGE 4
hen I think of the word “professionalism,” the first thing that comes to mind is the many faces of the attorneys who have mentored me throughout the years and the lessons I have learned from them. My personal journey started years ago. I grew up on a Caribbean island, and my father, who was a trial attorney in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, often took me to the courthouse with him. Everyone was so respectful of my father when we went to court. At that young age, I thought my father was very powerful, but later in life I realized that what I thought of as power turned out to be respect. In 2008, my father received an award for professionalism from the Supreme Court of Santo Domingo and “El Colegio de Abogados” (the Bar Association in Santo Domingo) after practicing law for more than forty years. The plaque reads, “For practicing the legal profession with excellence and dignity.” It is no coincidence that when my father passed away last fall, the only item I took from his office was the professionalism plaque, which is now hanging in my office. Although my father was my first mentor, as a law student and later on as an attorney, I have had the privilege to work alongside attorneys whose actions spoke louder than words. Their character and integrity were (and continue to be) unmatched. If I could summarize in a few words what I have learned from them as a young attorney, I would start by saying that you must treat others as you would like to be treated. It is that simple and that difficult at the same time. When opposing counsel, colleagues, and clients treat you with respect, giving respect back is easy. However, the real test is when you deal with difficult situations – the difficult client, opposing counsel, or colleague. How you react to those awkward and sometimes stressful situations can often be challenging. I do not have a simple answer, or the perfect answer, and I am the first one to admit that while I strive to treat others as I would like to be treated, there have been instances where I wish I had handled things differently. From those difficult situations, I have learned that communication is key and that avoiding the situation is not going to solve anything. Communication can clear up misunderstandings and in many instances improve the situation. Discussing the situation with a senior partner, another trusted colleague, or a member of
www.orangecountybar.org
the judiciary will help you see the situation in a new light and from a new perspective. We can all remember times when opposing counsel believed that their obligation to diligently advocate for their client meant they were supposed to be aggressive or had to disagree about everything no matter how minor. What worked for me in those situations in the past was to focus on the issues at hand and try to avoid wasting time arguing over ancillary issues. On many occasions, my efforts resulted in the other side getting the point. I particularly remember a situation in the middle of settlement discussions when a more experienced attorney sent me an email and said that it was in the best interest of my client to settle the case because it was pending in a circuit where he had been practicing for decades in front of a judge he had known since the judge was admitted to the bar. The attorney indicated he would take his chances even against a good attorney. I remember being outraged by the statement and what it implied, since it had nothing to do with the issues, the facts of the case, or even my belief that the judge would apply the law justly. I found the statement to be extremely inappropriate. Was I reading too much into this statement? Was this merely the statement of an attorney just puffing? I remember discussing the situation with other attorneys, and they all agreed that I should let opposing counsel know that statements such as his were inappropriate. I discussed it with opposing counsel, and we ended up resolving the litigation. I have been practicing law for more than ten years. While it is probably more interesting to discuss difficult situations, I would rather share my thoughts about the qualities shared by attorneys who have had a positive impact on the way I practice law rather than focus on the stories about the few attorneys who do not treat others the way they would like to be treated. In my international practice, I come in contact with many attorneys: young attorneys and more experienced ones; local attorneys and those from outside the United States. The qualities I find most appealing in my colleagues, co-counsel, or opposing counsel are competence, responsiveness, and respectfulness. It does not matter in which jurisdiction you practice or what level of experience you have, if you continued page 27
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
OCBA LuncheonJune 16, 2011
Mayanne Downs President of The Florida Bar City Attorney of Orlando
H
ear the real story behind the stories of the 2011 Florida Legislative session and what it means to the state’s Judiciary and legal profession from Mayanne Downs, president of The Florida Bar. Speaker of the House, Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park), declared early that transforming the Judiciary would become his legacy, and he launched his efforts with unprecedented proposals of change and cutting. Similarly, Mayanne declared that her No. 1 priority as president of The Florida Bar would be securing a stable, recurring funding source for the Judiciary in a year of budget slashing unlike any seen in modern times. The stage was set for a dramatic, and occasionally almost Machiavellian, legislative session. As in most cases in the legal profession, there are winners and losers. You can decide for yourself. Mayanne’s term as president of The Florida Bar ends this month, but not her jobs as the City Attorney of Orlando, appointed by Mayor Buddy Dyer in 2007, and a partner in the firm of King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A., where she specializes in complex commercial litigation, high-net-worth dissolution cases, and appellate matters.
Mayanne Downs
Mayanne graduated with highest honors from the University of Florida College of Law in 1987, where she held two senior editorial positions on the University of Florida Law Review, and she served as chancellor of the Student Honor Court. She is a member of Order of the Coif, the University of Florida Hall of Fame, and Florida Blue Key. She is a past president of the Orange County Bar Association, the Central Florida Association for Women Lawyers, and The Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association. She was nominated to the Fifth District Court of Appeal in 2000. Mayanne also has been named among Florida Trend’s Legal Elite, Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, and she has an “AV” rating from MartindaleHubbell. Mayanne has been a member of the OCBA since 1979. Born and raised in Orlando, Mayanne has two children: Barry, completing his sophomore year at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and Savannah, who graduates from Boone High School this month and will attend Auburn University.
Sponsored by:
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 5
Dues Renewal Pay your dues ONLINE today and enjoy your OCBA benefits all year long! Network. Socialize. Learn. Enjoy. To pay your dues online, go to our secure website at www.orangecountybar.org click on “Member Login” and enter your login and password. You may also pay by check via mail. When you renew, be sure to update your membership photo for the Online Membership Directory and sign up for the Online Lawyer-to-Lawyer Specialty Index. Dues renewal ends June 30. A $25 late fee will be assessed for dues received after July 1, 2011. If you have questions or need your login information, please contact Karen Fast, membership manager, at karenf@ocbanet.org.
You just got sued
by your client.
Are the attorney malpractice experts on your side?
Defending yourself against a malpractice claim could leave you in financial ruin. And it could destroy your firm—and its reputation—in the process. This very real risk is why the Orange County Bar Association selected Marsh U.S. Consumer, a service of Seabury & Smith, Inc., to provide affordable professional liability insurance to its members. With more than 20 years’ experience, you can count on our extensive experience and successful defense strategies for the professional liability coverage you need. AR Ins. Lic. #245544
PAGE 6 52654 ad.indd 1
|
CA Ins. Lic. #0633005
|
Get a quote in just 5 minutes Ready to see how economical your professional liability coverage could be? It takes less than 5 minutes to get your customized quote. Just call
1-800-365-7335 Ext. 6435. Or visit proliability.com/lawyer.
d/b/a in CA Seabury & Smith Insurance Program Management
www.orangecountybar.org
|
52654 (2011) ©Seabury & Smith, Inc.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6 12/15/10 4:15:36 PM
2011-2012OCBA Officers & Executive Council
THOMAS A. ZEHNDER
KRISTYNE E. KENNEDY
President King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A. 25 E. Pine St. Orlando, FL 32801 407-422-2472 tzehnder@kbdzlaw.com
PAUL J. SCHECK
President Elect/Vice President The Law Office of Kristyne Kennedy, P.A. 4401 E. Colonial Dr., Ste. 105 Orlando, FL 32803 407-895-8197 kennedyk@kristynekennedy.com
Treasurer Shutts & Bowen, LLP 300 S. Orange Ave., Ste. 1000 Orlando, FL 32801 407-423-3200 pscheck@shutts.com
NICHOLAS A. SHANNIN
Secretary Page, Eichenblatt, Bernbaum & Benett, P.A. 214 E. Lucerne Cir. Orlando, FL 32801 407-386-1900 nshannin@floridalawonline.com
Executive Council Holland & Knight, LLP 200 S. Orange Ave., Ste. 2600 Orlando, FL 32801 407-425-8500 wiley.boston@hklaw.com
Executive Council Miller Etzler & Maloney, P.A. 429 S. Keller Rd., Ste. 310 Orlando, FL 32810 407-478-7950 maryann@milleretzlerlaw.com
MARY ANN ETZLER
ELIZABETH F. MCCAUSLAND Executive Council Liz McCausland, P.A. 545 Delaney Ave., Ste. 9 Orlando, FL 32801 407-492-1817 Liz@LizLawFirm.com
NICHOLE M. MOONEY
Executive Council Dean, Mead, Egerton, et al. 800 N. Magnolia Ave., Ste. 1500 Orlando, FL 32803 407-841-1200 nmooney@deanmead.com
JAMIE BILLOTTE MOSES
ERIC C. REED
GARY S. SALZMAN
WILLIAM D. UMANSKY
WILLIAM C. VOSE
KIMBERLY D. WEBB
WILEY S. BOSTON
Executive Counci Shutts & Bowen, LLP 300 S. Orange Ave., Ste. 1000 Orlando, FL 32801 407-835-6790 ereed@shutts.com
Executive Council GrayRobinson, P.A. 301 E. Pine St., Ste. 1400 Orlando, FL 32801 407-843-8880 gsalzman@gray-robinson.com
ESTHER M. WHITEHEAD
FRANK M. BEDELL
Executive Council P.O. Box 611 Windermere, FL 34786 407-925-8934 rkwhitehead@comcast.net
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Executive Council The Umansky Law Firm, P.A. 1945 E. Michigan Ave. Orlando, FL 32806 407-228-3838 bill@thelawman.net
Ex-Officio Winderweedle, Haines, Ward & Woodman, P.A. 390 N. Orange Ave., Ste. 1500 Orlando, FL 32801 407-423-4246 fbedell@whww.com
 
Executive Council William C. Vose, Esq. 1104 Bahama Dr. Orlando, FL 32806 407-836-2426 wcvose@cfl.rr.com
LASHAWNDA K. JACKSON YLS President Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell, P.A. 300 S. Orange Ave., Ste. 1400 Orlando, FL 32801 407-872-7300 ljackson@rumberger.com
www.orangecountybar.org
Executive Council Fisher, Rushmer, et al. 20 N. Orange Ave., Ste. 1500 Orlando, FL 32801 407-843-2111 jmoses@fisherlawfirm.com
Executive Council Gobel Flakes, LLC 189 S. Orange Ave., Ste. 1430 Orlando, FL 32801 407-455-5165 kwebb@gobelflakes.com
BRANT S. BITTNER
Executive Director Orange County Bar Association 880 N. Orange Ave. Orlando, FL 32801 407-422-4551 brantb@ocbanet.org
PAGE 7
President’sMessage continued from page 3
client’s interests must always come first. Offensive or obstructive tactics make lawyers less effective, not more so. In my experience, this type of conduct often costs the client far more, not only in additional fees spent on, for example, unnecessary and unfounded discovery disputes, but also because the lawyer who gets embroiled in such disputes often loses sight of and focus on the real issues in the case – the ones that deliver the result the client wants in the first place. Truly, then, our effectiveness as lawyers – and the effectiveness of the legal system as a whole to properly administer justice – depends on our civility and on our professional conduct. Bar work has also taught me the importance of maintaining your integrity. Your integrity is your own. It is an attribute you are born with, intact when you begin your legal career. You control it completely, and no one can take it away from you. You are the only person who can put your integrity in play. Some may lose it in one fell swoop by taking clearly inappropriate action. But, perhaps more often, others lose it over time by “the death of a thousand cuts” – namely, slowly abandoning their integrity by taking liberties here or cutting corners there. Without your integrity, you can no longer function as an effective lawyer. Your clients will not listen to you because they no longer trust the legal advice you give. Your opponents will not listen to you because they’ve seen that your word is not reliable. And the judges will not listen to
you because they know what you say about the facts or the law cannot be trusted. These are the death knells of a failed legal career. We owe it to ourselves to maintain our integrity, our professionalism and our civility. Without them we cannot be “who we are and what we represent” – lawyers in this community making a difference. The OCBA provides a forum for all things that are good about being a lawyer. It provides guidance and mentoring, education and enlightenment, and camaraderie and collegiality. It reminds us that practicing law is a privilege, not a right and that as members of our noble profession grounded on the principle that service to others is our highest calling, we must always practice with professionalism and integrity. Through its Legal Aid Society, the OCBA provides us with the amazing opportunity to make a difference in the lives of people who need our help the most. So, as we embark on another year, I invite you to reconnect with the OCBA. Take another pro bono case, join us at our monthly luncheons, attend our seminars, and mingle at our social events. I wholeheartedly believe that you will find your bar involvement rewarding as I have – after all, the OCBA helps us to always “remember who we are and what we represent.” Thomas A. Zehnder, 2011-2012 president of the OCBA, is a partner with King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A. He has been a member of the OCBA since 1995.
Dear John, By John Elliott Leighton
Dear John,
What did the Florida Legislature change about medical malpractice cases? — Richard W., Ft. Lauderdale, FL
A: The Florida Legislature has passed substantial limits on medical malpractice cases. Doctors at Shands and the University of Miami will have sovereign immunity and there are now caps on damages for Medicaid patients of $200,000. Expert witnesses from outside of Florida will now be required to obtain certification to testify here and subject themselves to discipline by the Florida Board of Medicine. The effect is to limit victims’ recoveries and make bringing such cases much more difficult and expensive. Send your Dear John letter to DearJohn@LeightonLaw.com Include your name, or just initials, and city.
Serious Lawyers for Serious Cases.® Miami Orlando LeightonLaw.com 888.395.0001 The information in this column does not constitute legal advice. You should not take action based upon this information without consulting legal counsel. The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon any single source of information, including this column. ©2011 Leighton Law, P.A.
2011 OCBA Photos Available! You enjoyed the Gala - now enjoy it again and again! Purchase your Gala photos online from Boehm
& Boehm Forensic Media Consulting, LLC at www.boehmboehm.com (See: “Gala 2011 and Luncheon Photos” on the right) or Jen Adams & Associates, Inc., at www.JenAdamsPhoto.com
(Click: “Buy Photos” at the bottom of the menu bar. Password: ocbagala). PAGE 8
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Urgent Litigation, Limited Court Access? Appoint a Special Master.
Our Court-Appointed Masters/Magistrates Expedite: • Discovery • Settlement Administration • Evidentiary Hearings and Recommended Orders • Conduct of Private Trials by Stipulation
Resolution
URCH WATSO CH N P U
WH
Specialists
ITE & M AX
uww-adr.com
Daytona Beach, FL • Maitland / Orlando, FL • Miami, FL • Birmingham, AL
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 9
PAGE 10
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
The Florida Bar FoundationNews Bruce B. Blackwell to Receive The Florida Bar Foundation’s 2011 Medal of Honor for a Lawyer
B Bruce B. Blackwell
ruce B. Blackwell, an Orlando attorney widely renowned for his pro bono work, professional leadership and service to the organized bar, has been selected to receive The Florida Bar Foundation’s 2011 Medal of Honor Award for a lawyer, the Florida legal profession’s highest award. Bruce, a partner in the law firm of King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A., is a past Foundation president and currently serves as a trustee of The Florida Bar Foundation Endowment Trust. He also is a past president of the Orange County Bar Association, past member of The Florida Bar Board of Governors and current president of the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society.
The impact of Bruce’s service is evidenced by the tremendous support his nomination received. His nomination letter was signed by 42 leaders of the legal profession, including past recipients of the Medal of Honor; past presidents of the American Bar Association, The Florida Bar, the Orange County Bar Association, and The Florida Bar Foundation; a former justice of the Florida Supreme Court; a law school dean; 11 judges and many current and past members of The Florida Bar Board of Governors. Described in the nomination as a “workhorse for our profession who leads by example,” Bruce has a reputation for taking on tough pro bono cases and often going well beyond providing legal help. After handling a pro bono landlord-tenant case, for example, Bruce and his family decided to invite the family’s eldest daughter, a teenager named Sabrina Wiggins, to live with them while she finished high school and applied for college. Wiggins is now a veterinarian who credits much of her success to Bruce and his family. She recalls that at the time she did not understand the reason for the generosity she was shown. “I was waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Wiggins said. “Then, I realized, the shoe is never going to drop. This was the kind gesture of a kind person. It blew my mind.” Beyond providing pro bono legal services to the poor, Bruce has worked to secure funding for legal aid locally, statewide and nationally. In so doing, he has received accolades for his political acumen, diplomacy and countless hours of dedication. Bruce’s nominators wrote, “The continuing the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
thread over more than 30 years has been his commitment to enthusiastically serve others who can never, ever repay his kindnesses, his compassion or his often life-changing services. He has a daily commitment to provide access to justice, and his behind-the-scenes work on key policy matters at the state and national level regarding our profession, and particularly service to the underserved, is extraordinary.” The American Bar Association recognized Bruce in 2008 with its Grassroots Advocacy Award for his sustained and effective lobbying of Congress on behalf of federal funding for legal services to the poor. That same year, he received the Outstanding Voluntary Bar President Award from the Florida Council of Bar Association Presidents. In describing Bruce’s impact on the statewide legal profession, this group noted that he served with “quiet diligence and sincere goodwill” and that he provided the lawyers of Florida the example that is the foundation of leadership. “Because of his leadership, others watch, others learn, others follow and others serve,” the Bar nominators wrote. Bruce has received awards for his pro bono service, both from the Ninth Judicial Circuit and from The Florida Bar. He was also recognized by the Orange County Bar Association in 2003 with its highest award for professionalism, by the George C. Young First Central Florida American Inns of Court in 2009 with its highest award for professionalism, ethics and civility in the practice of law, and by the Florida State University College of Law in 2009 with the Alumni Service Award, its highest award for service to the law school. While selected as one of 48 lawyers statewide for inclusion in Florida Trend’s first Legal Elite Hall of Fame in 2010, Bruce’s passion is to ensure access to justice for those in poverty and otherwise without hope. “I consider the work of the Foundation to be the most rewarding of my legal career,” said Bruce, who served for 11 years on the board, playing a vital role in policymaking, fundraising and advocacy. “We work to provide access to justice for thousands of Floridians who live in poverty.” For his lifelong commitment to duty and service to the public, to improving the administration of justice and to advancing the science of jurisprucontinued page 18 PAGE 11
Construction LawCommittee Dealing with a DBPR Investigation against a Licensed Contractor
T Fred R. Dudley
he Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) reviews, investigates and prosecutes administrative complaints against licensees of the Construction Industry Licensing Board (CILB) and the Electrical Contractors’ Licensing Board (ECLB), as well as complaints involving the “unlicensed” activities of these areas of practice. In addition to these boards, there are three other boards that deal with construction-related licenses: the Building Code Administrators and Inspectors Board1, the Florida Board of Professional Engineers, and the Board of Architecture and Interior Design, the last two of which conduct their own investigations and prosecutions under private contracts. A complaint made to DBPR regarding one of its licensees must be in writing but may be made anonymously. If the complaint is found to be “legally sufficient” (i.e., if the allegations are found to be true, there would be a violation of law), it is assigned a case number and an investigator who sends the licensee a “subject notification letter” advising of the complaint made and under investigation and allowing the licensee to respond, usually within twenty days. While a response is not required, legal counsel should be sought immediately to review the alleged violation with the licensee and to determine what type of response should best be made. It is always a good idea to give some response, at least to: (1) acknowledge receipt of the complaint; (2) advise of legal counsel’s role and restrict communications solely to the attorney, and (3) request a copy of the investigative report when it has been completed. However, great care must be taken by the licensee’s attorney neither to give details of the matter under investigation nor to make legal arguments; the investigator is usually a layperson with law enforcement background who wants to “make the case” against the licensee and is not able or empowered to resolve legal issues. Instead, any response given to the investigator will be made a part of the report, which will then be reviewed by an agency prosecuting attorney before being taken to the board’s Probable Cause Panel. It is possible to give information or documents to the investigator that may unintentionally tend to prove the allegations under investigation, or to lead to the investigation of additional violations not identified in the initial complaint. Since complaints against licensees are confiden-
PAGE 12
www.orangecountybar.org
tial2 and not available as public records until ten days after a determination of “probable cause” has been made, it is vital that an attempt be made to prevent such a determination, if possible, so as to allow the licensee in the future to respond “no” to the frequently asked question on other licensure applications and bid documents: “Have you ever been disciplined by a regulatory board?” Unless the case involves mistaken identity or undisputed facts that would completely exonerate the licensee if made available to the investigator, the best time for the licensee’s legal counsel to intervene with the agency’s prosecuting attorney assigned to the case is as soon as the investigative report has been received in the Department’s Tallahassee headquarters. Some of the ways to avoid a determination of “probable cause” might include mitigating circumstances that would support a “letter of guidance” to the licensee (if available), which is not considered “disciplinary action,” or a successful mediation of the dispute. If a non-disciplinary result cannot be obtained, a small fine for a first offense can usually be negotiated after a finding of probable cause and the filing of an administrative complaint; however, it is rare for these cases to require a formal administrative hearing. If, however, a determination of “probable cause” cannot be avoided, an administrative complaint will be filed by the agency and served by registered or certified mail on the licensee, who is then given an “Election of Rights” form to complete, sign and return. These options include: (1) not disputing the facts and allowing the board to impose such penalties as they may choose; (2) not disputing the facts but requesting an INFORMAL hearing before the board to present explanations and possible mitigating circumstances; or (3) disputing the facts and requesting a FORMAL hearing before the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH). If the third option is chosen, DOAH will promptly assign an Administrative Law Judge to hear the case and make a “recommended order” of independent findings of facts and conclusions of law, which is then presented to the board for final action. After a “final order” is issued by the board, a judicial appeal is available to be initiated by the licensee within a very limited period of time. The penalties in such cases can include revocacontinued page 18
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
GrayRobinson’s Central Florida Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice Group Members
R. Lee Bennett
([WUHPHO\
Terence “Terry” J. Delahunty, Jr.
William A. Grimm
Jeffrey D. Keiner
Benjamin W. Newman
Mario Romero
)/25,',$1 GrayRobinson’s mediators, arbitrators, and private judges provide alternative dispute resolution services in many areas, such as: Commercial/Business Construction Employment Government Insurance Negligence/Torts Professional Liability Real Estate
Fort LauderdaLe MiaMi Gary S. Salzman
Charles T. Wells
JacksonviLLe key West LakeLand MeLbourne napLes orLando taLLahassee taMpa 800-338-3381 l www.gray-robinson.com
FOR LEASE
Unique Opportunity to Lease an entire floor under 3,500 RSF! 100 South Orange Ave. Orlando, Florida 32801 Space Available: Up to 31,161 RSF on floors 2-10 Building Size: 39,256 SF Lease Rate: $19.00—$27.00 RSF Prime location...in the heart of downtown Orlando. The building is located directly across the street from The Plaza which features upscale restaurants, retail, theatres and residential units. Only two (2) blocks from The Amway Events Center, City Hall and the soon to break ground Dr. P. Phillips Performing Arts Center.
For more information: Jeffrey D. Patterson jpatterson@equity.net Licensed Real Estate Broker
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
407.948.1425 www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 13
SpecialRecognition
2011 Liberty Bell Award Recipient: Sara E. Trollinger
S Sara E. Trollinger
PAGE 14
ara E. Trollinger, founder and president of House of Hope and House of Hope Orlando, is the Orange County Bar Association’s 2011 Liberty Bell Award recipient. House of Hope is a non-profit, faith-based residential program designed to address the problems affecting hurting and troubled teens and their families. The program offers an opportunity for teens to learn how to accept responsibility, submit to authority and develop coping mechanisms to be successful as they transition towards adulthood. Teens facing a life of drug use, abuse, criminal activity, eating disorders and self-harm have turned their lives around after participating in the House of Hope program. Sara is a former school teacher who uses all of her skills as an educator, coupled with her faith, to bring hope and success to the teens and contribute to the process of healing and restoration of families. She taught for twenty-five years in Orlando schools, including fifteen years as a teacher for the emotionally handicapped. Sara is dedicated to service. Her belief in civic responsibility, one criterion for recipients of the Liberty Bell award, is embodied in the difficult decision Sara made in 1985 to quit her job and start House of Hope on $200 and the prayers of friends. Since that time, House of Hope has taken no government funding. It was nationally recognized by the late President Ronald Reagan in his words: “The philosophy and example of the House of Hope, which receives no government funds, needs to be shared across our nation. Those who want to help disturbed teenagers should be able to know that there is a way...and that way works... Lives can be successfully rescued from drugs, sexual abuse, prostitution...”
www.orangecountybar.org
A complete version of his inspiring remarks can be found on the House of Hope website. The program has also been recognized by former Senator Mel Martinez. Sara did not stop with the House of Hope in Orlando, but has reached beyond this community and shared her dream with other communities across the nation by establishing a training facility in Orlando. House of Hope is a self-sustained model for addressing the needs of teenagers. Without question, Sara’s House of Hope model promotes a better understanding for the rule of law and a greater respect for the law and the courts. She has established a crime prevention modality in her counseling program for the many students who come to House of Hope with behavioral problems such as drug use and other criminal activity. The program encourages students and families to respect the law and avoid activities that could force them into the criminal justice system. Sara also encourages legal professionals, including judges, to engage in presentations to the participants in House of Hope. In addition, the House of Hope can serve as a rehabilitative program for teenagers charged as delinquents in the juvenile justice system. Ms. Trollinger is an accomplished author and the recipient of many awards. As the leader of House of Hope, she has touched the lives of many teenagers and their families, turning crime, abuse, drug use and other desperate situations into success stories. She is a deserving recipient of the 2011 Liberty Bell Award.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 15
Business LawCommittee Secrets Revealed: Fundamental Steps to Pleading and Proving a Trade Secret Claim in Florida - Part I
Y
Christopher A. Pace
our client, a Florida corporation, believes its trade secrets have been misappropriated by a former employee or business partner and, after attempting unsuccessfully to resolve the matter pre-suit, now finds it necessary to pursue litigation.1 What do you do? How do you plead and prove a trade secret and its misappropriation in Florida? The answers to these questions are not always straightforward. Part of what makes trade secret cases challenging is that they are typically fact-intensive and, at times, technical. Usually, the facts are disputed. Exacerbating the complexity is the broad spectrum of what constitutes a trade secret. In theory, as long as the definitional requirements are met, virtually any subject matter or information can be a trade secret.2 In practice, the vast majority of trade secrets litigated in state courts are comprised of either internal business trade secrets (i.e., customer lists and other internal business information) or technical trade secrets (i.e., formulas, technical information, and software or computer programs). These categories comprise 94% of state trade secret litigation.3 Usually, internal business trade secrets are litigated in state cases more often than technical trade secrets.4 Florida and forty-five other states have trade secret laws based on the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), a model act created to deal with misappropriation issues. The Florida Uniform Trade Secrets Act (FUTSA) is codified at Florida Statutes §§ 688.001, et seq. In order to obtain relief under FUTSA, one must plead and prove: (1) the existence of a “trade secret” and (2) that the former employee or business partner actually misappropriated the trade secret or is threatening to misappropriate it.5 Under the act, damages, exemplary damages, injunctive relief, and, in limited circumstances, attorney’s fees are available to remedy a misappropriation of a trade secret.6
Identify the Trade Secret While FUTSA may not be long (it consists of nine concise parts), its definitions and substantive requirements make it challenging to plead and prove a successful claim. The most critical task in asserting a claim under FUTSA is identifying the purported trade secret and determining whether it falls within FUTSA’s broad definition. Most courts will require that a plaintiff identify the trade secret very early in a case.7 A trade secret under FUTSA consists of: PAGE 16
www.orangecountybar.org
information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process that: derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.8 Only trade secrets that fall within this definition will be afforded protection.
Specifically Allege the Trade Secret An inherent paradox exists in every trade secret action: to keep a trade secret a “secret,” the claimant must disclose it.9 In fact, a party asserting trade secret protection under FUTSA must describe the trade secret allegedly misappropriated with reasonable particularity; a party may not simply make a conclusory assertion that the information is protected under FUTSA.10 This can be a daunting task given the sensitive nature of the information; however, it must be done so that the information can be tested against FUTSA’s statutory definition. To alleviate your client’s concerns, there are statutory safeguards in Florida to preserve the secrecy of the information. A court has an obligation under FUTSA to “preserve the secrecy of an alleged trade secret by reasonable means.”11 The court can accomplish this by granting protective orders, holding in camera hearings, sealing records of the action, and ordering any person involved in the litigation not to disclose an alleged trade secret without prior court approval.12 Establish That the Information Fits Within FUTSA’s “Trade Secret” Definition FUTSA’s definition of “trade secret” contains four elements that must be established in order to qualify for protection. The information must: (1) possesses independent economic value, (2) derive it from not being generally known to others who can obtain economic value from its disclosure, (3) not be readily ascertainable by proper means by those who can obtain value from it, and (4) be the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.13 It is the claimant’s burden to establish all elements of this statutory definition.14 Care must be taken to plead the substantive facts necessary to satisfy
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
each of these elements; the failure to satisfy even one of these elements will be dispositive. The first element, “value,” is typically established through substantive evidence proffered by the owner of the trade secret, which will vary depending upon the information and the facts of the particular case. Although direct evidence is preferred, value may be proven through indirect or circumstantial evidence.15 Value evidence can consist of the time, money, and effort spent in producing the trade secret.16 Additionally, it is advisable to retain an expert who can competently evaluate and offer testimony regarding the independent economic value of the information at issue. In fact, an expert should be retained early on in the case, preferably well in advance of filing a pleading alleging FUTSA claims.17 Once value has been established, a claimant must prove the trade secret is not generally known to others who can obtain economic value from its disclosure.18 This is no easy task. The plain language of FUTSA provides that the information not be “generally known.”19 As a result, the claimant must essentially prove a negative fact (i.e., that “other persons” do not know the information). Although difficult, it is possible to prove this issue through the claimant’s own testimony and through circumstantial evidence. However, by being “forced to rely on [his or her] own (presumably selfserving) testimony to try and establish the requisite secrecy of the information,” the claimant must place his or her credibility into issue.20 One practitioner suggests using the testimony of a competitor who will attest that the information is not generally known.21 Of course, doing that has the effect of disclosing the trade secret to the competitor. Failing to show the information is not “generally known” is fatal to a trade secret case and is, perhaps, the easiest way for a defendant to defeat a trade secret claim, as a recent federal case illustrates.22 In re Maxxim Medical Group, Inc., 434 B.R. 660 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2010) dealt with whether purported trade secrets (information regarding custom procedure trays sold to hospitals by a medical services and supply company) were generally known. The court determined that the information did not qualify as trade secrets under FUTSA, where the customer hospitals could determine both tray contents and design, tray contents were identified in bills of materials that hospitals could use without restriction, and the designs of the trays were obvious to users because the trays were unpacked, and no restrictions were imposed on the end users’ subsequent use of the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
any design.23 The lesson to be drawn from Maxxim is the need for special attention to whether a claimant has made the information comprising the trade secret generally known. Publication or distribution of the information will undermine this element of the statutory definition. The third element of FUTSA’s trade secret definition requires that the information not be readily ascertainable by “proper means” to persons who can obtain value from the information.24 Although FUTSA does not define “proper means,” it does provide that a person can acquire a trade secret by “improper means” through theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach or inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy, or espionage through electronic or other means.25 Thus, if the information could have been acquired without having to resort to one of the enumerated “improper means,” the information cannot be characterized as a trade secret.26 In other words, claimants must make certain that the trade secret at issue was obtained through one of the “improper” methods defined in FUTSA and should take care to secure the proof necessary to satisfy this substantive element. The final element of FUTSA’s definition requires that the information be the subject of efforts to maintain its secrecy that are reasonable under the circumstances.27 To fall within this definition, a claimant must submit substantive evidence establishing the steps it took to maintain the secrecy of the information. One recent study found that, of all the measures trade secret owners took to protect their trade secrets, only two measures – confidentiality agreements with employees and confidentiality agreements with third parties – statistically predicted that a court would find that this element was satisfied.28 Preservation of secrecy can be accomplished without a confidentiality agreement, however. In Premier Lab Supply, Inc. v. Chemplex Industries, Inc., 10 So. 3d 202 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009), the district court held that a spooling machine and its design were trade secrets owned by a manufacturer, seller, and distributor of plastic cups and films used in x-ray spectroscopy, even though the manufacturer never had any confidentiality agreement with its employees or any patent for the machine. The court reached this conclusion because the machine was unique, not readily ascertainable by proper means, and the manufacturer took reasonable measures to maintain the secrecy of the machine by keeping the machine in a separate room away from the public.29 Conversely, in Cubic Transp. Systems, Inc. v. Miami-Dade County, 899 So. 2d 453 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005), a corpo
www.orangecountybar.org
ration was found not to have a legitimate trade secret in documents submitted to Miami-Dade County because it failed to take reasonable efforts to maintain the secrecy of the documents by not marking them as confidential and by first making a claim of confidentiality 30 days after delivery of the documents.30 Regardless of the method employed, claimants must be prepared to establish the reasonable efforts taken to maintain the secrecy of the claimed trade secret. In short, it is essential to identify the trade secret and establish that it fits within each part of FUTSA’s definition. One misstep in this regard will cause the claimant’s case to collapse and serve to assure that misappropriation issues will not be resolved by the fact-finder. Part II of this article, which will appear in next month’s issue of The Briefs, will discuss the elements of misappropriation of trade secrets under FUTSA. Christopher A. Pace, an attorney with Dempsey & Associates, P.A., is the current chair of the OCBA’s Business Law Committee. He has been a member of the OCBA since 2006. In the typical trade secrets case, the alleged misappropriator was either an employee or business partner of the trade secret owner. See David S. Almeling, Darin W. Snyder, Michael Sapoznikow, Whitney E. McCollum & Jill Weader, A Statistical Analysis of Trade Secret Litigation in State Courts, Gonzaga Law Review, Volume 46, Number 1, 2010/11, 57. 2 Michael A. Epstein, Epstein on Intellectual Property § 1.02[E][1] (5th ed. 2008 & Supp. 2009). 3 David S. Almeling, Darin W. Snyder, Michael Sapoznikow, Whitney E. McCollum & Jill Weader, A Statistical Analysis of Trade Secret Litigation in State Courts, Gonzaga Law Review, Volume 46, Number 1, 2010/11, 57. 4 Id. 5 Tom Barber, Beyond Noncompete Agreements: Using Florida’s Trade Secrets Act to Prevent Former Employees From Disclosing Sensitive Information to Competitors, The Florida Bar Journal, March, 1999, Vol. LXXII, No. 3. 6 §§ 688.003- 688.005, Fla. Stat. (2010). 7 James Morando, Defending Trade-Secret Claims, Partner Advisory, Daily Journal Corporation (2008). 8 § 688.002(4), Fla. Stat. (2010). 9 Gary S. Gaffney and Maria E. Ellision, A Primer on Florida Trade Secret Law: Unlocking the “Secrets” to “Trade Secret” Litigation, U. Miami Bus. L. Rev. 1, at 9 (2003). 10 Levenger Co. v. Feldman, 516 F. Supp. 2d 1272 (S.D. Fla. 2007); see also Treco Intern. S.A. v. Kromka, 706 F. Supp. 2d 1283 (S.D. Fla. 2007) (complaint described with reasonable particularity the information alleged to be misappropriated, including confidential information on the development, structure and marketing of a wireless communication network, timing of network’s commercial deployment, technical information about the feasibility of the network obtained through a highly confidential and high-level due diligence report and through discussions, and a confidential infrastructure agreement.). 11 § 688.006, Fla. Stat. (2010). 12 Id. 13 § 688.002(4)(a)(b), Fla. Stat. (2010). 14 See Levenger Co. v. Feldman, 516 F. Supp. 2d 1272 (S.D. Fla. 2007); see also Premier Lab Supply, Inc. v. Chemplex Industries, Inc., 10 So. 3d 202 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009). continued page 19 1
PAGE 17
BarNews
continued from page 11
dence, Bruce will receive the Medal of Honor June 23 at The Florida Bar Foundation’s 35th annual reception and dinner, to be held in conjunction with The Florida Bar Annual Convention at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando. Receiving the 2011 Medal of Honor Award for a non-lawyer will be Kathleen “Katie” Self, executive director of the Teen Court of Sarasota, Inc. and a pioneer in the implementation of Teen Courts across Florida. The Florida Bar Foundation Medal of Honor Award Program was established in 1977. For a list of past recipients, go to: http:// www.flabarfndn.org/about/award-programs/medal-of-honor/ Nancy Kinnally, Director of Communications, The Florida Bar Foundation.
Construction LawCommittee continued from page 12
tion or suspension of the contractor’s license, so understanding the procedures and legal options, and considering an early strategy for dealing with the DBPR investigation, is usually critical to a successful outcome. Accordingly, engaging legal representation immediately upon receipt of the investigator’s initial notification letter, and resisting any impulse to respond or provide documents to the investigator before such engagement, is strongly recommended. Most licensees are never faced with an administrative investigation as described in this article. Fred R. Dudley, Board Certified in Construction Law, is an attorney with Holland & Knight, LLP, Tallahassee, FL. He has contributed this article on behalf of the OCBA Construction Law Committee. On which the author serves as a “consumer” member and chairs the Probable Cause Panel. 2 As compared to complaints against unlicensed persons for “unlicensed activities,” and those against engineers, which are not confidential and become public records as soon as the complaint is received by DBPR. 1
PAGE 18
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Business LawCommittee
HONEYWELL MEDIATION
continued from page 17
Randall E. Kahnke, Ten Keys To Avoiding Or Winning Trade Secret Cases, http://www.aipla.org/learningcenter/library/papers/am/2010/Documents/Kahnke_Paper. pdf, p. 5. 16 Erik Electric Co. v. Elliot, 375 So.2d 1135, 1138 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979) 17 Gary S. Gaffney and Maria E. Ellision, A Primer on Florida Trade Secret Law: Unlocking the “Secrets” to “Trade Secret” Litigation, U. Miami Bus. L. Rev. 1, at 9 (2003). 18 § 688.002(4)(a), Fla. Stat. (2010). 19 Id. 20 Gary S. Gaffney and Maria E. Ellision, A Primer on Florida Trade Secret Law: Unlocking the “Secrets” to “Trade Secret” Litigation, U. Miami Bus. L. Rev. 1, at 19 (2003). 21 Id. at 19-20. 22 Id. at 18. 23 In re Maxxim Medical Group, Inc., 434 B.R. 660, 675678 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2010). 24 § 688.002(4)(a), Fla. Stat. (2010). 25 § 688.002(1), Fla. Stat. (2010). 26 Gary S. Gaffney and Maria E. Ellision, A Primer on Florida Trade Secret Law: Unlocking the “Secrets” to “Trade Secret” Litigation, U. Miami Bus. L. Rev. 1, at 23 (2003). 27 § 688.002(b), Fla. Stat. (2010). 28 Id. 29 Premier Lab Supply, Inc. v. Chemplex Industries, Inc., 10 So. 3d 202, 205-206 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009). 30 Cubic Transp. Systems, Inc. v. Miami-Dade County, 899 So. 2d 453, 454 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005). 15
& Other Alternative Dispute Resolution Services
Does your mediator have an online calendar for scheduling? Finding a date acceptable both to your opposition and to you is difficult enough for your busy staff. Having the calendar of your mediator at your finger tips simply makes that task so much easier for you and your staff. Dan H. Honeywell Visit my website: www.honeywellmediation.com to find who I am, my online schedule, my educational blog, and what I offer you and your client who may be seeking success without trial. My unique credentials and experience can be a useful and valuable added resource in finding resolution to your client’s dispute. • Certified Circuit Civil Mediator • Certified appellate Mediator • Certified Federal Court Mediator • Board Certified Civil Trial lawyer
Call Honeywell Mediation/Mediation, Inc: Winter Park: 407-647-5155 Orlando-Central Florida: 407-294-7000 • Statewide-National: 800-741-7000 Neutral, convenient conference facilities on Lee Road in Winter Park. Available anywhere in Central Florida without travel charge.
1/6 page OCBA The Briefs, June. 2011
PUBLISH YOUR LEGAL NOTICES in the Gulf Coast Business Review
Serving Eight Florida Counties: Sarasota | Manatee | Hillsborough | Pinellas | Pasco | Lee | Collier | Orange
New Member Benefits!
The Weekly Newspaper for Gulf Coast Business Leaders
Call: (941) 906-9386 | Visit our website: www.review.net
2011 Online Membership Directory!
◆ 2011 Lawyer-to-Lawyer Specialty Index
“We keep IT simple”
◆
Z .ETWORK -ANAGEMENT Z $ESKTOP 3UPPORT Z (ELP $ESK 3ERVICES Z 3ECURITY -ANAGEMENT Z "ACKUP $ISASTER 2ECOVERY
The Briefs online!
◆
Go to Member Login at www.orangecountybar.org Karen Fast, Membership Manager, karenf@ocbanet.org 407-422-4551 Ext. 225
A Single Monthly Fee means “No Surprsies”! Free Network Assessment Z Z 866-981-5553 Contact@Protechnica.net Z Z www.Protechnica.net OCBA’s IT Support and Solution Provider
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 19
YLS on the move
J
Jacquelynne J. Regan
PAGE 20
une is Great Outdoors Month, a month dedicated to emphasizing the advantages of spending recreational time outdoors and volunteering in the local community. This is the perfect time of year to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air while fishing in Orlando’s lakes, walking the Cady Way Trail or getting involved in one of Orlando’s many volunteer opportunities. The warm summer season is also the perfect time for some of the YLS’s greatest events! On May 19, 2011, Eric Reed, former president of the YLS, handed over the gavel to LaShawnda Jackson, our new YLS president. As always, this luncheon was a memorable one. Eric reviewed the many fun and charitable events the YLS has participated in over the course of the past year, and past presidents of the YLS came to offer their invaluable advice to LaShawnda as she ably takes over the reins. Eric, we will miss you! LaShawnda, we welcome you as our new president! And congratulations to the new YLS officers: Anthony F. Sos, president-elect; Lauren F. Carmody, treasurer; Sunny Hillary, secretary; Jacquelynne Regan, communications coordinator; and board members Amber Neilson Davis, Chelsie Flynn, Daryl P. Gottlieb, Melanie S. Griffin, Lauren C. Heatwole, Taylor C. Kessel, Kristopher J. Kest, Doug Martin, Chanel A. Mosley, Jonathan A. Stimler and Eric C. Reed! On April 29, 2011, the YLS and CFAWL were honored with the Partners in Education Award for West Orange County for all of the good work the organizations complete at Rock Lake Elementary School. Each year, the YLS and CFAWL partner to provide Rock Lake Elementary with all the school supplies it needs for the year, volunteer teachers for the annual Teach-In event, turkeys and other goodies for Thanksgiving, and presents, shoes and other gifts for children who would not otherwise be remembered at the holidays. During the period over which the YLS and CFAWL have supported Rock Lake – almost a decade! – the school has improved its ranking from an F school to an A school. Additionally, in 2009, Rock Lake was nominated as Florida’s number one school in exceptional student performance for two or more consecutive years under Title I. This honor qualified Rock Lake to be considered for an award on a national level, and at the Title I Conference in February 2009, Rock Lake became one of 57 schools in the nation to receive a Distinguished School Award. A Rock Lake staff member recently said the following about how the YLS and CFAWL played a role in Rock Lake achieving these successes: “Without the support of you all, with your providing supplies and encouragement, and Christmas and love, and just so many things, we would not be able to make the strides and have the success that we have at this time. You
www.orangecountybar.org
are wonderful, and we thank you!!” Such kind words and sentiments of appreciation represent just a small sampling of all the gratitude Rock Lake has shown the YLS and CFAWL over the past several years. The successes achieved by Rock Lake demonstrate the significant, positive impact the YLS and CFAWL contributions have made on the school and its students through their continued support. Everyone who has contributed to the Backpack Project, Teach-In, Thanksgiving Drive and Angel Tree projects should be very proud of their efforts! “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!” The YLS will be hosting the 2nd Annual Dodgeball Tournament on Thursday, August 4 from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Teams of six will take turns trying to take out their opponent while avoiding being hit themselves in an effort to capture the “golden wrench,” the trophy awarded to the top team. The entry fee is only $50 per team, and each team is guaranteed to play at least three games. Interested team captains can contact Shane Fischer at shane@ fischer-law.com for more information or to sign up. The next two Brown Bag Lunches with Judge Kest will be June 9 and July 22, 2011. June’s lunch will focus on Expert Witnesses: Selecting, Disclosing, Discovering and Examining. July’s lunch will cover Voir Dire – Basic Jury Selection. Please feel free to bring your lunch and learn while you eat. Please tell security you are attending the Brown Bag Lunch with Judge John Kest in the Judicial Conference Room on the 23rd floor so you will be permitted to bring your lunch through security. Each meeting will provide 1.5 hours of CLE credit. If you are interested in joining Judge Kest for the next Brown Bag Lunch, please contact Judge Kest’s judicial assistant at 407836-0443 or ctjadi1@ocnjcc.org. The YLS June Luncheon will take place on June 15, 2011, at 11:45 a.m. at the University Club. Please email your RSVP to admin@ocbayls.org. If you RSVP by June 14, 2011, the cost is $20 for lawyers and $12 for law students, government attorneys, solo attorneys, and judges; a late charge of $2 will be added if you do not RSVP by the deadline. To find out more about the YLS and its committees and events, please contact me at 407-418-6438 or reganjj@lowndes-law.com. If you are not receiving the YLS email blasts, send an email to admin@ocbayls. org to sign up! Jacquelynne J. Regan is an attorney with Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor, & Reed, P.A. She has been a member of the OCBA since 2007.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
The Orange County Bar Association 2011 Gala The Legal Aid Society Celebrating 50 Years of Service 1961 – 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011 • SunTrust Center
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 21
Thanks to our generous sponsors: Platinum Sponsors
Arthur’s Creative Events & Catering Fisher, Rushmer, Werrenrath, Dickson, Talley & Dunlap, P.A. Holland & Knight, LLP King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A.
Gold Sponsors
Brant and Linda Bittner Dean, Mead, Egerton, Bloodworth, Capouano & Bozarth, P.A. Dellecker, Wilson, King, McKenna, Ruffier & Sos, LLP Lydia Gardner, Clerk – Orange County Clerk of Courts GrayRobinson, P.A. Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A. McMillen Law Firm, P.A. Roetzel & Andress, LPA Shutts & Bowen LLP Young Lawyers Section of the OCBA
Silver Sponsors
Allen, Dyer, Doppelt, Milbrath & Gilchrist, P.A. Allen, Norton & Blue, P.A. Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A. Fishback, Dominick, Bennett, Stepter, Ardaman, Ahlers & Langley LLP Gerard Glynn and Angela Halladay Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A. Kayla Mudge Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell, P.A. Wicker, Smith, O’Hara, McCoy & Ford, P.A.
Bronze Sponsors
Baker Press, Inc. Frank and Ashley Bedell Honorable Deb S. Blechman Bright House Networks Business Solutions Matt and Alana Brenner Honorable Leon Cheek, III Law Office of Clarence W. Counts, Jr. Curtis Protective Services, Inc. Mary Anne and John M. De Petrillo Law Offices of Meena A. Hirani, P.A. N. Diane Holmes, P.A. JURIS Imaging & Graphics Chirag B. Kabrawala Law Office of Kristyne Kennedy, P.A. Lapina & DuBois, P.A. Liz McCausland, P.A. Legal Talent, LLC - Wynn McFarlin Law Offices of Diane Baltzelle McWhirter New England Financial Michael Remensnyder and Mabelle Diez Orange Reporting, Inc. Honorable Antoinette D. Plogstedt and Marc A. Plogstedt Law Offices of Barry Rigby, P.A. Ralph J. Rogers Nicholas A. and Carol Shannin Territo Information Systems Catherine A. Tucker Law Offices of William A. Umansky, P.A. William Vose Esther Whitehead and Honorable Reginald Karl Whitehead Rena Williams Law Offices of Robert A. Witt Law Offices of Tad A. Yates, P.A. Zeno Office Solutions
PAGE 22
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Photos by Florian Boehm, Boehm & Boehm Forensic Media Consulting, LLC
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 23
A very special thank you to SunTrust for its generous assistance with the Legal Aid Society and the 2011 OCBA Gala
PAGE 24
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
SpecialFeature
Summer Tire Safety
T Henry Didier
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
he summer sun heats everything up in Florida, including the roadways, which can reach temperatures in excess of 120 degrees. Hot asphalt means hot tires, which speeds deterioration and increases the risk of tire failure. The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates it changed 75,000 flat tires last year over the Fourth of July holiday weekend alone.1 Tire failures can be caused by a variety of factors, including underinflation, overinflation, poor maintenance, tire aging, design defect or manufacturing defect. Any one of these can contribute to tread separation and, when tires fail, can result in the loss of control, accidents and rollovers. When you add extended summer heat to the mix, it only increases the likelihood of such incidents. With regard to proper inflation, the key is to maintain correct tire pressure. This can be tricky in the summertime as heat causes the air inside the tire to expand and overinflate the tire. In an overinflated tire, the center section of the tread balloons outward, focusing weight on the center of the tire. Conversely, driving on underinflated tires causes the sidewalls to bulge and wear unevenly. This reduces tire life and can potentially lead to sudden tire failure. Accordingly, drivers are responsible for regularly checking their tire pressure as the summer months approach. Similarly, proper maintenance is important to minimize the likelihood that a tire may fail. By keeping an eye on a tire’s tread, looking for any obvious signs of exterior damage, and being otherwise generally aware of the overall condition of a vehicle’s tires, tire failures due to poor maintenance can be avoided. Of course, having skilled tire professionals check and rotate tires regularly is always a good practice and can serve as a preventative safety measure. While not all problems with tires can be seen, regular visual inspections can help identify potential problems in some instances. In some cases, however, the visual appearance of the tire itself may not tell the whole story. Regardless of how a tire appears and even if the tire has perfectly good tread depth left, a tire may simply be too old to withstand the heat and pressure of the road. It is now recommended that tires be replaced after six years, regardless of tread depth. Aged tires are often unsuspectingly mounted on a vehicle after having served as a spare, being stored in garages or warehouses, or simply having been used on a vehicle that is infrequently driven. In many instances these tires show no visible sign of
deterioration and, absent any visible indicators such as dry rot, tires with adequate tread depth are likely to be put into service without consideration of age. This can be dangerous. Tires are made of rubber, which deteriorates over time due to various factors, including heat. If a tire is six years of age or older, it should be replaced. Tires can also fail due to design or manufacturing defects, despite being properly maintained and properly inflated over their entire useful life. The Firestone tire investigation identified a number of individual aspects in the design and manufacturing process that contributed to a higher percentage of tread separations.2 While tire manufacturing is relatively low tech, occasionally tires may not be formed correctly. This can lead to increased incidents of tread separation. For example, the fusing which occurs during vulcanization may not be done properly, causing incomplete adhesion of the tires’ components. The physical changes that a tire undergoes over time also reduce the effectiveness of the bonding of the tread to the tire carcass, leading to undesired separation of these two components. These defects are often undetectable to consumers. However, many experts now acknowledge that when such defects exist, heat can increase the likelihood that these preexisting defects will cause a tread separation. To help consumers compare a passenger car tire’s treadwear rate, traction performance, and temperature resistance, the federal government requires tire manufacturers to grade tires in these three areas. This grading system, known as the Uniform Tire Quality Grading System, provides guidelines for making relative comparisons when buying new tires. From highest to lowest, a tire’s resistance to heat is graded as A, B, or C. The temperature grades represent the tire’s resistance to the generation of heat when tested under controlled conditions on a specified indoor laboratory test wheel.3 Federal law requires that all tires meet at least the minimal requirements of Grade C. This system of grading exists because heat and tire failures are related. Accordingly, it is that much more important for consumers to be aware of tire safety issues as the heat of summer grows. Henry “Hank” Didier, founder of the Didier Law Firm, P.A., specializes in litigating cases involving unsafe airbags, tire failures, heavy truck accidents, ATV accidents, defective helmets and more. He has been a member of the OCBA since 1995.
www.orangecountybar.org
see endnotes page 36 PAGE 25
SideBar
A
s a reminder, Father’s Day is coming up on Sunday, June 19, 2011. Father’s Day is the perfect day to show and tell your father and other special guys in your life exactly how much they mean to you. Here are some interesting facts for you: •There are approximately 70.1 million fathers across the nation.
Sunny Lim Hillary
•There are approximately 8,111 men’s clothing stores across the nation. •There are approximately 16,010 hardware stores across the nation. •There are approximately 22,116 sporting goods stores across the nation. •Approximately 81.5 million people participated in a barbecue in the last year. Now, let’s see what some voluntary bar associations have been doing and what’s coming up in the months ahead for the Central Florida Association for Women Lawyers, the Greater Orlando Asian American Bar Association, the Hispanic Bar Association of Central Florida and the Paul C. Perkins Bar Association! CFAWL On April 29, 2011, the YLS and CFAWL were honored with the Partner in Education award for West Orange County for all of the good work the organizations complete at Rock Lake Elementary School. Each year, the YLS and CFAWL partner to provide Rock Lake Elementary with all the supplies it needs for the year, teachers for Teach-In, turkeys and other goodies for Thanksgiving, and presents, shoes and other gifts for children who would not otherwise be remembered at the holidays. Way to go YLS and CFAWL! May was a busy month for CFAWL! On May 4, 2011, CFAWL hosted a fashion night at Talbot’s in Winter Park. This private fashion show and shopping event provided women with new ways to update their wardrobe with this season’s trends. On May 10, 2011, CFAWL sponsored a luncheon at the Orlando Public Library featuring Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince. Justice Quince shared her journey of becoming the first African-American woman to sit on the Florida Supreme Court and the first to head a branch of Florida government when she served as Chief Justice from 2008-2010. On May 19, 2011, CFAWL hosted its Grande Dame Reception at Dubsdread for female attorneys who have been practicing 20 years or more. Female attorneys mixed and mingled while exchanging their experiences in the legal profession. Finally, on May 25, 2011, CFAWL hosted a dinner at the Ronald McDonald House. CFAWL prepared a delicious breakfast-dinner for the families staying at the Arnold Palmer location of the Ronald McDonald House. Thank you to all of the volunteers who came out and spent time with the kids!
PAGE 26
This month, CFAWL’s new board will be sworn in at CFAWL’s monthly luncheon at the Citrus Club at noon. To help celebrate the occasion, and to thank the 2010-2011 board for all of its hard work, CFAWL is hosting a toast to the members of the outgoing and incoming boards the evening of Thursday, June 16, 2011, from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., followed by a tasting of French wines from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Total Wine on East Colonial Drive. For more information, please contact CFAWL’s new president, Melanie Griffin, at mgriffin@deanmead.com or 407-428-5106. GOAABA This month, GOAABA’s new board will be sworn in at a special installation event. For more information about attending the installation, please contact Lisa Gong at lisa.x.gong@gmail.com. Next month, GOAABA will be hosting a CLE luncheon. Richard S. Larson will be presenting a 1hour CLE entitled, “A Conversation about Best Employment Practices,” which is sure to be beneficial for you and your practice regardless of your primary area of practice. To RSVP, please contact Wanda Reas at WReas@znoskoreas.com. In August, GOAABA will be hosting a banquet as part of its educational program relating to the removal of the Alien Land Law. Florida is the only state that still maintains the following constitutional prohibition against aliens owning real property under Article I, Section 2 of the Florida Constitution: All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and to acquire, possess and protect property; except that the ownership, inheritance, disposition and possession of real property by aliens ineligible for citizenship may be regulated or prohibited by law. No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, natural origin, or physical disability.
The restriction on alien ownership of land began in the late 1800s and continued through the early 1900s through the passage, state by state, of laws restricting Chinese and Japanese immigrants from owning real property. For more information about the banquet, or for educational literature prepared by GOAABA, please contact Christy Nash at Christy.Nash@burr.com. HBACF On May 14, 2011, HBACF hosted its annual Family Day at Borinquen Farm. Located just 30 minutes outside of downtown Orlando, Borinquen Farm enabled everyone to forget that they were in the city and feel like they were transported to the family “finca” (farm). Children enjoyed field games, pony rides, great Spanish food, and great music, and the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6 www.orangecountybar.org
pony rides, great Spanish food, and great music, and members, friends and supporters took advantage of the opportunity to mingle outside of the business setting and share a day with their loved ones. PCPBA On April 14, 2011, Adam C. Losey of Foley & Lardner, LLP, conducted a CLE on electronic discovery at the Paul C. Perkins Bar Association monthly meeting at the Orlando Public Library. For more information about the Paul C. Perkins Bar Association, please contact president Warren Channell, at warren@channellfirm.com, or 407-656-3855. If you want to find out more about any of the abovereferenced voluntary bar associations, please call me at 407-272-5488 or email me at sunny@hillarylaw.com.
Joint Social Lisa Gong GOAABA Social Chair Felipe Guerrero HBACF President-elect Tiffany Faddis HBACF & CFAWL Board Member Karla Valladares HBACF President Warren Channell PCPBA President
Sunny Lim Hillary, Hillary, P.A., has been a member of the OCBA since 2005.
ProfessionalismCommittee
Valuation & Litigation Services
continued from page 4
are competent, responsive and respectful, others will notice and will reciprocate with respect.
Business Valuations
I appreciate being recognized by the Orange County Bar Association. I would not have been recognized if it were not for the many mentors in my life, especially Brock McClane, Mike Tessitore, my husband Doug Kelly, my mother Fany Aquino, my sister Wanda Aquino, and my late father, Dr. Luis Rafael Perez Heredia, who all taught me to love and respect this profession. I encourage attorneys to take time to mentor others. I have been extremely fortunate to work and come in contact with attorneys throughout my career who have taken the time to help me polish my skills as an attorney by explaining the complexity of the facts of a new case, by giving me a new perspective on an issue, or by simply listening to me. As we try to balance the demands of a busy practice, family and other professional commitments, I know it is a challenge to take time to answer an email or return a telephone call from a recent graduate looking for a job or a young attorney facing his or her first contested hearing. It is time consuming to go to lunch with a law student who is trying to figure out his or her career path. But taking the time to mentor young attorneys is time well spent. These small sacrifices of time can impact a person – and our profession – in ways we will probably never know.
Litigation Support
Forensic Accounting
Adam T. Magill, MBA, AVA, CBA 801 Magnolia Ave, Ste 304, Orlando, FL 32803 407-233-4180 / 407-233-4182 Fax
Penelope B. Perez-Kelly is a partner with the law firm of McClane Partners. Her practice centers on commercial litigation, international business law, trademarks and immigration. She has been a member of the OCBA since 2002.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 27
SpecialFeature Douglas E. Abrams
What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers and Judges: Wisdom from Plato to Mark Twain to Stephen King Part II This is the second in a two-part special to The Briefs. CONCISENESS... continued from Part I 4. “It is with words as with sunbeams—the more condensed, the deeper they burn” – British Romantic poet Robert Southey.41 Concise, precise writing can be the most direct, and thus the most forceful. “When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully,” said Roman author, orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero. “Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”42 Eighteenth century British poet Alexander Pope said that “[w]ords are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”43 Pope found “a certain majesty in simplicity”44 because wordiness breeds imprecision when underbrush shrouds expression. Does “less” really mean “less”? Not to writer and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who says that “even when you cut, you don’t.”45 “Writing is not like painting where you add. . . . Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove.” “Even those pages you remove somehow remain,” says Wiesel, “There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred pages are there. Only you don’t see them.”46 The quest for conciseness nonetheless may raise a judgment call for lawyers and judges. Justice Joseph Story, one of the most prolific legal writers in the nation’s history, warned that sometimes “[b]revity becomes of itself a source of obscurity.”47 Where full exposition of a legal doctrine, argument or agreement requires extended discussion, conciseness for its own sake may actually breed imprecision and compromise the sound administration of justice or the rights of clients. 5. “It wasn’t by accident that the Gettysburg Address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics” – Ernest Hemingway.48 “History at its best is vicarious experience,” said leading twentieth century historian Edmund S. Morgan.49 Sometimes an historical example can help dispel a writer’s concern that readers might mistake conciseness for weakness. The “less is more” school profits from recounting President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which he delivered on November 19, 1863 to help dedicate a national cemetery to fallen Civil War soldiers. Preceding the President to the podium that day was Edward Everett, widely regarded as the greatest American orator of the era, a luminary whose resume included service as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, Massachusetts Governor, Minister to Great Britain, Secretary of State, and Harvard University professor and president. After Everett held the podium for more than two hours, Lincoln rose with a masterpiece that took less than two minutes. Mindful that the nation’s newspaper and magazine readers needed a concise, stirring and readily embraceable rationale for wartime perseverance, Lincoln knew that his audience extended beyond the shadows of the cemetery. Indeed, the greatest praise for the Gettysburg Address came not from the President’s listeners that November day, but from his readers almost immediately. Ralph Waldo Emer-
PAGE 28
www.orangecountybar.org
son anticipated the verdict of history when he predicted that the President’s “brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion.”50 “Perhaps [in] no language, ancient or modern, are any number of words found more touching or eloquent,” echoed abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe.51 Everett knew immediately that his interminable oration had bequeathed nothing memorable. “I should be glad,” he wrote the President the day after the Gettysburg dedication, “ if . . . I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”52 “My speech will soon be forgotten, yours never will be,” the prescient Everett told the President, adding “How gladly would I exchange my hundred pages for your twenty lines.”53 6. “Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;/ Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.54 7. “Many a poem is marred by a superfluous word” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.55 Conciseness begins with a document’s broad design and overall structure, but extends to choice of individual words. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do,” said lawyer Thomas Jefferson, who found “[n]o stile of writing . . . so delightful as that which is all pith, which never omits a necessary word, nor uses an unnecessary one.”56 British writer H.G. Wells concisely stated the case for conciseness: “I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.”57 British historian and educator Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) introduces the next section of this article. “Brevity and simplicity,” Arnold wrote, “are two of the greatest merits which style can have.”58 SIMPLICITY 1. “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well” – attributed to Albert Einstein.59 2. “Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler” – paraphrasing Albert Einstein.60 In more than 300 scientific and 150 non-scientific papers, Einstein sought to explain complex ideas as simply as possible.61 “Any fool,” he said, “can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.”62 English playwright and novelist W. Somerset Maugham offered two secrets of play writing – “have common sense and . . . stick to the point.”63 For lawyers, common sense recognizes that legal arguments are not always as complex as they first seem. “Out of intense complexities,” observed Winston Churchill, “intense simplicities emerge.”64 On the other hand, simplicity for its own sake can snare unwary legal writers. Where full exposition of a legal doctrine or argument requires extended discussion, over-simplification may impede rather than enhance communication. Lawyers heed Einstein’s formula best with the same sound judgment at the keyboard that they would exercise when speaking in the courtroom or other halls of justice. 3. “[B]eauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity” – Plato.65 4. “The supreme excellence is simplicity” – Edith Wharton.66
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Lawyers and judges write best by playing the percentages, which (as Einstein taught) usually points the compass toward simplicity. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” said Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance thinker whose writings have survived the centuries.67 “[T]o be simple is to be great,” agreed essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.68 Thomas Jefferson left no doubt about where he stood. “I dislike the verbose and intricate style of the English statutes,” the elderly lawyer wrote a friend in 1817, “and in our [Virginia’s] revised code I endeavored to restore it to the simple one of the ancient statutes.”69 5. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule” – Stephen King.70 “One of the really bad things you can do to your writing,” King explains, “is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.”71 Ernest Hemingway said that he wrote “what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.”72 Hemingway and William Faulkner went back and forth about the virtues of simplicity in writing. Faulkner once criticized Hemingway, who he said “had no courage, never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary.” “Poor Faulkner,” Hemingway responded, “Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”73 Kurt Vonnegut placed himself comfortably in Hemingway’s camp: “I wonder now what Ernest Hemingway’s dictionary looked like, since he got along so well with dinky words that everybody can spell and truly understand.”74 Will Rogers is most remembered as a humorist, but satire about public issues frequently conveys perceptive underlying messages. Rogers wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns, and he contributed wisdom about language.75 His advice resembled Hemingway’s and King’s: “[H]ere’s one good thing about language, there is always a short word for it,” Rogers said. “‘Course the Greeks have a word for it, the dictionary has a word for it, but I believe in using your own word for it. I love words but I don’t like strange ones. You don’t understand them, and they don’t understand you. Old words is like old friends – you know ’em the minute you see ’em.”76 6. “The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words” – British Victorian novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans).77 “Broadly speaking,” said Churchill, “the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.”78 “Use the smallest word that does the job,” advised essayist and journalist E. B. White.79 In a letter to a twelve-year-old boy, Mark Twain praised his young correspondent for “us[ing] plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.”80 “Where a short word will do,” said British writer and theologian Henry Alford (1810-1871), “you always lose by using a long one.”81 “Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us,”
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Alford concluded, “but simplicity and straightforwardness are.” 82 CLARITY 1. “Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style” – British poet and writer Matthew Arnold. 83 “[T]he first end of a writer,” British Poet Laureate and literary critic John Dryden counseled in 1700, is “to be understood.”“Everyone who writes strives for the same thing,” added poet William Carlos Williams: “To say it swiftly, clearly, to say the hard thing that way, using few words. Not to gum up the paragraph. To know when to quit when you’ve done.”84 British writer and poet John Ruskin (1819-1900) found it “excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them.”85 2. “The chief virtue that language can have is clarity, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words” – Hippocrates.86 3.“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people” – William Butler Yeats.87 “Don’t implement promises, but keep them,” instructed British novelist and essayist C.S. Lewis.88 “Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’, otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” 89 “Plain clarity is better than ornate obscurity,” advised Mark Twain.90 “Words in prose,” said British Romantic poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.”91 Coleridge’s point is universal. Lawyers and judges normally write best when precision, conciseness, simplicity and clarity craft a style that induces readers to remember the message more than they remember the messenger. CONCLUSION Literary figures have long disparaged lawyers’ writing as unworthy of emulation. “[D]o not give it to a lawyer’s clerk to write,” warned Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote, “for they use a legal hand that Satan himself will not understand.”92 Lawyers, said Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, use “a peculiar cant and jargon of their own that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong.”93 In his poem, “The Lawyers Know Too Much,” Pulitzer Prize winning writer and poet Carl Sandberg chided “higgling lawyers” for “Too many slippery ifs and buts and howevers,/ Too much hereinbefore provided whereas,/ Too many doors to go in and out of.”94 Perhaps, Sandberg’s poem mused, a lifetime of unvarnished legalese helps explain “why a hearse horse snickers hauling a lawyer’s bones.”95 Lawyers who appreciated literary style have expressed similar criticism. Near the end of his life, for example, Thomas Jefferson chastised his fellow lawyers for “making every other word a ‘said’ or ‘aforesaid’ and saying everything over two or three times, so that nobody but we of the craft can un
www.orangecountybar.org
twist the diction and find out what it means.”96 “I quote others in order to better express my own self,” explained French Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne.97 In this two-part article, I have quoted from some of history’s best-known writers to show how literature can help lawyers and judges achieve what Mark Twain called “the supreme function of language. . . – to convey ideas and emotions.”98 For lawyers and judges alike, the core aspiration is continually to hone writing skills because, as Hemingway put it, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”99 “As with all other aspects of the narrative art,” says Stephen King, writers “improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?”100 Douglas E. Abrams, a law professor at the University of Missouri, has written or co-authored five books. Four U.S. Supreme Court decisions have cited his law review articles. “What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers and Judges” first appeared in Precedent, Fall 2010, Vol. 4, Issue 4 and is reprinted by permission of the Missouri Bar Association and Douglas E. Abrams. Tim Dick, Take a Clear Mind and a Sharp Pencil Into Battle Against Verbiage, Sydney Morn. Herald (Australia), Dec. 12, 2009, at 7 (quoting Southey). 42 I Lloyd Albert Johnson, A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought 33 (2003) (quoting Cicero). 43 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, Part II, line 109 (1711). 44 I Alexander Pope, The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. (1824). 45 Robert Franciosi, Elie Wiesel: Conversations 72 (2002). 46 Id. 47 Joseph Story, Story’s Miscellaneous Writings 153 (1835). 48 Ernest Hemingway, Letter of July 23, 1945, in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917-1961 (Carlos Baker ed., 1981). 49 John M. Murrin, Edmund S. Morgan, in Clio’s Favorites, Leading Historians of the United States, 1945-2000, at 134 (Robert Allen Rutland ed., 2000) (quoting Morgan). 50 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Writings 919 (Brooks Atkinson ed., 1940). 51 Gabor Borrit, The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows 159 (2006) (quoting Stowe). 52 James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution 112 (1991). 53 Univ. of Va., Miller Center of Public Affairs, American President: An Online Resource, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), http://millercenter.org/academic/ americanpresident/lincoln/essays/biography/7 (Mar. 4, 2011). 54 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Elegiac Verse, stanza XIV, http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem. php?pid=310 (Mar. 4, 2011). 55 III The Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow With Bibliographical and Critical Notes and His Life, With Extracts From His Journals and Correspondence (1886-1891), at 278. 56 Cindy Skrzycki, Government Experts Tackle Bad Writing, Wash. Post, June 26, 1998, at F1 (“most valuable,” quoting Jefferson); The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson 369 (E.M. Betts and J.A. Bear, Jr. eds., 1966) (letter of Dec. 7, 1818) (“stile of writing”). 57 Walter Allen, supra note 10, at 210. 58 I Arthur P. Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D. 334-35 (1910) (quoting Arnold). continued page 30 41
PAGE 29
What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers and Judges Part II
The Young Lawyers Section of the Orange County Bar Association Presents
continued from page 29
See, e.g., Fast Money, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), Nov. 29, 1999, at 2. 60 Albert Einstein, On the Method of Theoretical Physics, 1 Philosophy of Science 163, 165 (1934) (1933 lecture at Oxford Univ.) (“the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience”); Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 661 (2d ed. 1995). 61 II Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist 730–746 (Paul Arthur Schilpp ed., 1951). 62 Noma Prins, Deck Is Stacked Against Small Banks, Newsday, Oct. 22, 2009, at A37 (quoting Einstein). 63 W. Somerset Maugham 158 (Anthony Curtis & John Whitehead eds., 2003 ed.). 64 Manuel L. Real, Symposium on Mass Torts: What Evil Have We Wrought: Class Action, Mass Torts, and Settlement, 31 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 437, 437 (1998) (quoting Churchill). 65 Plato, The Republic, Book III, at 401 (Benjamin Jowett 3d ed. 1908). 66 Edith Wharton & Ogden Codman, Jr., The Decoration of Houses 198 (1897). 67 Helen Granat, Wisdom Through the Ages: A Collection of Favorite Quotations: Book Two, at 225 (2003) (quoting da Vinci). 68 Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers 544 (1895) (quoting Emerson). 69 9 Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 489-90 (1904) (letter of Sept. 9, 1817). 70 Stephen King, Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes (1986), http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/ content/view/312/74/ (Mar. 4, 2011). 71 Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft 110 (2000). 72 A.E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway 69 (1966) (quoting Hemingway). 73 Id. at 69-70 (1966) (quoting Hemingway). 74 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Latest Word (reviewing The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1966)), N.Y. Times, Oct. 30, 1966, at BR1. 75 Mark Schlachtenhaufen, Centennial Snapshot: Will Rogers’ Grandson Carries On Tradition of Family Service, Okla. Publishing Today, May 31, 2007, http://web.archive.org/web/20070928161652/ http://www.okinsider.com/topic_01OF0MMAHY/readstory. oki?storyid=03K101DDQ (Mar. 4, 2011). 76 Betty Rogers, Will Rogers 294 (1941; new ed. 1979) (quoting Rogers). 77 George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), quoted at Plainlanguage.gov, http://www.plainlanguage.gov/resources/quotes/historical.cfm (Mar. 4, 2011). 78 Susan Wagner, Making Your Appeals More Appealing: Appellate Judges Talk About Appellate Practice, 59 Ala. Law. 321, 325 (1998) (quoting Churchill). 79 Max Messmer, It’s Best to be Straightforward On Your Cover Letter, Resume, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nov. 29, 2009, at H1 (quoting White). 80 Robert Hartwell Fiske, The Dictionary of Concise Writing: 10,000 Alternatives to Wordy Phrases 11 (2002). 81 Henry Alford, The Queen’s English: A Manual of Idiom and Usage 350 (4th ed. 1874). 82 Id. at 350-51. 83 Matthew Arnold, The Works of Matthew Arnold 6 (190304). 84 Something to Say: William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets 96 (James E. B. Breslin ed., 1985). 85 John Ruskin, A Joy For Ever, Note 6th, at 188 (1857 & 1880 reissue). 86 Webster’s Online Dictionary, http://www.websters-onlinedictionary.org/definitions/Hippocrates?cx=partner-pub-09394507 53529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q= Hippocrates&sa=Search#906 (Mar. 4, 2011). 87 William Butler Yeats, quoted at Plainlanguage.gov, http://www. plainlanguage.gov/resources/quotes/historical.cfm (Mar. 4, 2011). 88 C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children 64 (Lyle W. Dorsett & Marjorie Lamp Mead eds., 1985) (emphasis in original). 59
PAGE 30
An Afternoon at the State Courthouse This seminar provides helpful hints for area attorneys as they practice before the Circuit and County Judges of the Ninth Judicial Circuit. It is also intended to provide insight into local judicial practices and procedures, and is designed for attorneys, law students, paralegals, and other legal professionals. The seminar is open to the public.
Friday, June 17, 2011 Registration Begins at 12:30 p.m. Seminar From 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Orange County Courthouse • 425 N. Orange Avenue, Orlando, FL • Jury Assembly Room – First Floor
10.00
$
Make checks payable to OCBA YLS. Please RSVP and send payment by Friday, June 10, 2011 to: Mike Remensnyder at miker@ocbanet.org or OCBA, 880 N. Orange Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801 For more information please contact Jeffrey S. Elkins at jse19@dbksmn.com or (407) 422-2454
Id. (emphasis in original). Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing 35 (Mark Dawidziak ed. 1996). 91 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, quoted at Plainlanguage.gov, http:// www.plainlanguage.gov/resources/quotes/historical.cfm (Mar. 4, 2011). 92 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote 214 (CRW ed. 2006). 93 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels 161 (1726; 1887 ed.). 94 Carl Sandburg, The Lawyers Know Too Much, in Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920 (William Stanley Braithwaite ed., 1920). 95 Id. 96 9 Thomas Jefferson, supra note 69, at 490 (letter of Sept. 9, 1817). 97 Mary Cox Garner, The Hidden Souls of Words: Keys to Transformation Through the Power of Words 58 (2004) (quoting Montaigne). 98 Mark My Words, supra note 7, at 18. 99 N.Y. J.-Am., July 11, 1961, quoted in Robert Schmuhl, For Some the Act of Writing Can Be As Important As the Finished Work, Chi. Trib., Apr. 2, 2000, at C3. 100 Stephen King, On Writing, supra note 71, at 178. 89 90
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
2011 Law Week Luncheon April 21, 2011 The Ballroom at Church Street Sponsor: DEX Imaging
Hosted by the OCBA Paralegal Section
Lori Spangler was presented with an award by Frank Bedell in recognition of her 15 years of service on the Law Week Committee
Law Week Committee co-chair Katrina Chapin
Law Week Poster & Essay Contest Winners
Frank Bedell Judge Faye Allen
Colleen Roche Bella Spence Alexander Clem Emily Lucas Laila Moon Hunt Vincent Avila Christian Justiniano Emily Ternent Laura Martinez Kelly Larsen
Annika Sison Arianne Beltrame Bria Cobb Vrajesh Patel Joan Marie Spinelli Katherine Breese Tia Hunter Camille Evans Teresa Nguyen
Sara Trollinger
Schools represented: St. James Cathedral School, St. John Vianney , Hillcrest Elementary, Boone High School, Olympia High School, Dr. Phillips High School
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
 
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 31
THE HEALTH LAW FIRM
MAIN OFFICE • 1101 DOUGLAS AVENUE • ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FL 32714 TELEPHONE: (407) 331-6620 • (850) 439-1001 • TELEFAX: (407) 331-3030 BRANCH OFFICE • 37 N. ORANGE AVE., STE. 500 • ORLANDO, FL 32801 BRANCH OFFICE • 201 E. GOVERNMENT STREET • PENSACOLA, FL 32501 WEBSITES • WWW.THEHEALTHLAWFIRM.COM • WWW.HEALTHATTORNEYS.COM
REPRESENTATION OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS Available to accept referrals, consult or co-counsel on cases involving physicians, nurses, health professionals or health facilities. Referral fees paid in appropriate cases. • Medicare/Medicaid Audit Defense
• Pain Management Clinic Representation
• Pain Management Physician Defense
• Medical Malpractice Defense
• DOH/AHCA Investigations
• Insurance Audit Defense
• ZPIC & RAC Audits
• Search Warrant Representation
• Administrative Hearings • Medicare/Medicaid Fraud Defense • Professional Licensing • Medical Board Cases • Subpoena Defense • Office Leases • National Practitioner Data Bank
GEORGE F. INDEST III, MICHAEL L. SMITH, J.D., R.R.T. J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. • Over 25 Years legal experience • LL.M. from George Washington University • Admitted in Florida, Louisiana and D.C. • Board Certified by the Florida Bar in Health Law
• • • • •
B.S., Nova Southeastern University J.D., Stetson Univ. College of Law Registered Respiratory Therapist Licensed in Florida Board Certified by the Florida Bar in Health Law
• Petitions for Waiver or Variance • Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) Defense • Utilization Review Defense • Preparation/Litigation of Physician Contracts • Nursing Board Cases
• Hospital Credentials Hearings
• Appeal of Emergency Suspension Orders (ESOS)
• Physician Contracts
• Corporations, LLC’s, Partnership and other Business Entities
• Partnership Dissolutions • Covenants not to Compete
• Sales/Purchases of Medical Practices
• Commercial Litigation
• Peer Review Defense
• Corporate Law
• Physican’s Personal Counsel
• Medicaid Appeal Hearings • Disciplinary Proceedings • Substance Abuse (PRN/IPN) • Appellate Practice
PAGE 32
JOANNE KENNA, J.D., R.N. (ILL.) • J.D., Stetson Univ. College of Law • Diploma, St Anne’s Hospital School of Nursing • R.N., Illinois • Licensed in Florida
CHRISTOPHER E. BROWN • B.A., Coastal Carolina University • J.D., Barry University of Orlando, College of Law • Licensed in Florida • Member, American Health Lawyers Association
www.orangecountybar.org
• Opinion Letters • Complex Litigation • Medical Staff Bylaws
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Mark your calendar Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, Inc. presents
September 13
TUESDAYS 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Comerica Bank
Public Benefits Speaker: Edward Dimayuga, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
September 27
111 North Magnolia Avenue, Suite 1000 10th Floor, Corner of Magnolia and Washington
Mental Health Disorders in Children (GAL topic) Speaker: Jennifer Schmidt, GAL Case Coordinator CLE Applied for
Orlando, FL 32801
October 4
June 14
Basic Dissolution of Marriage with Children for Pro Bono Attorneys (Part 1) (Limited enrollment for training available to non-family practitioners who will accept referrals of DOM cases from Legal Aid. Focus on pleadings and initial filing issues.) (2 hours)
Speaker: Angel Bello-Billini, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
July 12
Defenses to Garnishment Speakers: Larri Thatcher, Attorney at Law Michael Resnick, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
July 26
The Basics of Special Education Law for Dependent Children (GAL topic) Speaker: Bethanie Barber, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
Temporary Custody of Minor Children Using Chapter 751 to Obtain Custody by a Family Member: The Advantages, Limits and Practical Issues Speakers: William Davis, Attorney at Law Catherine Tucker, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
October 18
Children’s Developmental and Medical Issues and Services in Orange County (GAL topic) Speaker: Ericka Garcia, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
November 1
Landlord Tenant Law Update Speakers: Larri Thatcher, Attorney at Law Michael Resnick, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
December 6
Immigration Speaker: Charles Conroy, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
August 9
Basic Dissolution of Marriage with Children for Pro Bono Attorneys – Follow-up (Part 2) Speaker: Angel Bello-Billini, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
August 23
The Foster Care System and Teen Parents (GAL topic) Speakers: Doris Mackey, GAL Case Coordinator Cara Dobrev, Attorney at Law CLE Applied for
For OCBA members, the training is free. For non-OCBA members participating in the LAS pro bono program, the training is free. Pre-registration is required for the free lunch and requested for training (or subject to space availability if not pre-registered). For more information, please email: ctucker@legalaidocba.org or mcarbo@ legalaidocba.org or merazmus@legalaidocba.org. PARKING WILL BE VALIDATED THE DAY OF TRAINING. WE WILL NOT REIMBURSE PARKING VOUCHERS.
For more information, please contact Cathy Tucker at ctucker@legalaidocba.org; Marilyn Carbo at mcarbo@legalaidocba.org; or Michelle Erazmus at merazmus@legalaidocba.org.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 33
Rainmaking
Mark Powers
B
Managing Client Perceptions Equals Good Client Development
ack when the airline industry was making money, they routinely reinvested in maintaining the look of their planes. The seats, carpet and wall covering in every plane were consistently replaced and kept looking good. Why were they so particular about the look of their airplanes?
Shawn McNalis
PAGE 34
It was good business. When passengers see stained carpets or frayed fabric on the seat in front of them, they immediately begin to question how well the airline maintains the engine. The thought of a poorly maintained engine produces anxiety. If a smooth, pleasant and safe experience is what the airlines were after for their passengers, the perception that the plane is in shoddy repair does not help. The leap to such far-reaching conclusions by passengers is not limited to the airline industry. In the absence of any real information about a service or product, consumers will look to the quality of whatever surface features they see. We do this with politicians, too – the less we know about their abilities, the more we vote based on their physical appearance. A worthy candidate suffers if he or she doesn’t look good. What does all this have to do with the legal profession? Managing client perceptions is just as important for lawyers. Potential clients are nervous and feel at a distinct disadvantage when seeking legal services. They generally have a problem and want someone they trust to help them. As they sit in the reception area, their eyes wander as they unconsciously form that all-important first impression. During this initial survey, if the reception area is full of mismatched furniture and a disinterested receptionist sits behind the desk, what kind of an impression do they form about the attorney who works there? Is a worn décor or lack of hospitality a true indication of the firm’s professionalism or concern for clients? No, but it might as well be. Contrast that experience with one in which a potential client walks into an office, is impressed by the décor and feels warmly welcomed by the staff. Their first impression is a positive one and confers all manner of wonderful attributes on the firm – whether it deserves them or not. Here, the power of perception is made to work for you, not against you.
www.orangecountybar.org
All of this is to say: manage the perceptions of your clients. They are drinking in the look, the feel and the sound of your firm at all times. Your signage, how hard you are to find, what the parking is like, whether or not your website and letterhead match, the sound of the receptionist’s voice when he or she answers the phone ‒ all must be welcoming and consistently professional in look and feel. According to B. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, authors of several best-selling business books, we are in the Experience Economy. Today’s sophisticated consumers seek an elevated experience when they buy goods or services. Starbucks can charge four bucks for their coffee because they deliver it in a more hip environment than the diner on the corner. Dentists have learned to quell the anxiety of their patients by installing massage chairs, earphones and television monitors that run movies, cartoons, or whatever the patient wants. Theaters feature superior sound systems and seats that vibrate to the music. Design and technology are being employed at every turn to enhance the customer experience. A firm that specializes in divorce and is set in the Deep South, where hospitality is sometimes elevated to an art form, has music piped into the parking lot so clients are surrounded by soothing sounds from the start. Inside, the office is comfortably furnished with upholstered chairs and harmonious colors. This attorney knows his clients are in pain and surrounds them in a relaxing, calm environment. He doesn’t offer the clients something to drink; he provides the client with a menu and offers them a choice. And his efforts are more than skin-deep. On his staff are individuals who are expert at hand-holding anxious clients. Think this is too much? This is one of the top divorce firms in the state. It must be doing something right. One PI firm has taken a page from retailers and others who use scents for the psychological cues they invoke. Microwave chocolate-chip cookies are made periodically through the day. The comforting “reminds-you-of-home” smell of these cookies wafts through the firm and clients clamor to have them. It takes the edge off whatever tragic circumstances they are there to discuss. What state of mind are your clients in when they come to your office? Rarely are clients in a law office because they want to be. They are usually dealing with a crisis of some kind, or attempting
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
to forestall one in the future. How much better could you make the clients feel just by changing a few elements in your office? What kind of initial impression do you want your firm to make? Do you want to be seen as trustworthy, professional, dependable, stable, reassuring? Then, ask yourself if the look and feel of your office sends that message. If you can’t tell what kind of impression you make, use the “mystery shopper” technique. Ask someone your staff doesn’t know, but you trust, to call your office, make an appointment, and come and sit in the waiting room. When you bring him back to your office, he can tell you how he was greeted on the phone, whether or not he was put on hold, how easy it was to find the office and what it’s like to sit in your reception area. If asked, your spouse can tell you the same thing. You can also take the test below to help you identify problem areas: Client Reception •All clients are greeted warmly and offered a beverage upon coming into our reception area. •When meeting clients, the attorney comes to the reception area and escorts them to the conference room or office.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
•New clients are given a tour of the office and introduced to key people on their first visit. •The client is introduced to the “Designated Hitter” upon the first meeting. •The clients are given some kind of token gift with the firm's name on it. Facility or Office •The overall office decor sends the right message to the client in terms of credibility, permanence and trustworthiness. •The reception area chairs are in good condition and comfortable for sitting. •There is adequate and easily accessed parking for clients. •Any offices that the client sees are neat and orderly. •The office decor is matched to the type of client that frequents the firm. Materials and Signage •New clients receive maps or written directions in advance of their first visit. •Firm signage is clear and not difficult to follow. •New clients are given a “Welcome” package of information to familiarize them with the firm.
www.orangecountybar.org
•Firm letterhead or logo is well-designed and consistent on all materials. •The firm website has a look and feel similar to the rest of the firm materials, without being a duplication of the firm brochure. Telephone System •Clients are greeted warmly by a real human being when they call. •The voice mail system is adequate to the clients’ needs and always presents the option to speak to a real person. •Attorneys never take a call when meeting with a client unless it is an emergency. •All staff monitor their voice mail frequently. •Telephone calls are returned the same day, or within several hours. Mark Powers, President of Atticus, Inc. and Shawn McNalis co-authored How Good Attorneys Become Great Rainmakers and Time Management for Attorneys and are featured writers for Lawyers, USA and a number of other publications. To learn more about the work that Atticus (www.atticusonline.com) does with attorneys or the Atticus Rainmakers™ (www.atticusrainmakers.com) program, please visit or call 352-3830490 or 888-644-0022.
PAGE 35
Ne w M e mbers
Regular
Lawrence H. HABER
Lynn S. ALFANO
Alfano Law Offices 1631 Rock Springs Rd., #412 Apopka, FL 32712 407-889-4613 Michelle A. BERGLUND
Randy E. HILLMAN
Law Offices of Michelle Berglund 105 E. Robinson St., Ste. 201 Orlando, FL 32801 321-948-8824 Leigh T. BUDGEN
Budgen Law Group 400 N. Bumby Ave. Orlando, FL 32803 407-481-2888 Timothy L. DAVE
The Law Office of Timothy L. Dave, P.A. 4019 W. 1st St. Sanford, FL 32771 321-281-5814 Sabina FREDERICK
Frederick Law Firm, P.L. 5615 Silver Spruce Dr. Orlando, FL 32808 407-230-5538
Law Office of Lawrence H. Haber, P.A. 6 Escondido Cir., #55 Altamonte Springs, FL 32701 407-451-2000 Randy Hillman, P.A. 803 Verona St. Kissimmee, FL 34741 407-944-4335 John M. IRIYE
Smith Brown, P.L. 533 Versailles Dr., Ste. 100 Maitland, FL 32751 407-599-0002 Natalie A. JACKSON
Women’s Trial Group 538 E. Washington St. Orlando, FL 32801 407-418-1212 Heather N. JUSTER
Camy B. Schwam-Wilcox, P.A. 425 W. Colonial Dr. Orlando, FL 32804 407-245-7700 Curtis P. LEONARD
Law Offices of Brent C. Miller, P.A. 205 E Burleigh Blvd. Tavares, FL 32778 352-343-7400
Lyle MASNIKOFF
Law Offices of Lyle B. Masnikoff and Associates, P.A. 7380 Sandlake Rd., Ste. 500 Orlando, FL 32819 407-896-0116 Don H. NGUYEN
Law Offices of John L. Di Masi, P.A. 801 N. Orange Ave., Ste. 500 Orlando, FL 32801 407-839-3383 Dawn D. NICHOLS
Nichols & Ahmed, P.A. 645 N. Halifax Ave. Daytona Beach, FL 32118 386-253-9998 Nicholas A. NORDEN
Filmer LeRoy Albee Baumann 910 N. Ferncreek Ave. Orlando, FL 32803 407-264-7070 Shameka A. SIPLIN
Mascia Law Firm 605 E. Robinson St. Orlando, FL 32801 321-256-5910
Associate Robert (Trey) V. Goldsmith
Southern Trial Counsel, PLC 205 S. Eola Dr. Orlando, FL 32801 407-422-6100
407.716.4795 GillmoreAccounting.com
Camilia DIAZ
Darylaine Hernandez, LLC 1600 E. Robinson St., Ste. 400 Orlando, FL 32803 407-456-0076 Barri L. LOOKE
Law Office of Darylaine Hernandez, LLC 1600 E. Robinson St., Ste. 400 Orlando, FL 32817 407-456-0076
Law Students Seon S. EMANUEL
FAMU 201 Beggs Ave. Orlando, FL 32801 407-254-2400 Raquel GROSS
FAMU 201 Beggs Ave. Orlando, FL 32801 407-244-1852 Aleisha D. HODO
FAMU 201 Beggs Ave. Orlando, FL 32801 407-254-2000 Ted H. MCCASKILL
1916 E. Jefferson St. Orlando, FL 32803 601-831-4653
Paralegal Student Yanet PEREZ
In fact, the little details are by far the most important. Sherlock Holmes When meticulous and precise examination is in order... Tom Gillmore
Forensic Accounting Business Valuations Litigation Support Fraud Examination
Affiliate
Steve Marsee, P.A. 4162 Edgewater Dr. Orlando, FL 32804 407-521-7171
Summer Tire Safety continued from page 25
AAA, Travel Article, Fourth of July holiday travelers expected to increase 17.1 percent, AAA says, 6/23/2010. 2 Firestone Announces Findings of Root Cause Analysis, theautochannel.com/ news, December 19, 2000 accessed on 5/13/11. 3 NHTSA, Tire Safety, Everything Rides On It brochure, 3/18/2010. 1
Tired? Stressed out? Not feeling on top of your practice? Talk with someone who’s been there.
Suellen Fagin-Allen, JD, LMHC Attorney since 1986/Licensed Mental Health Counselor (407) 242-2956 – Suellen@CounselingFL.com 1417 N. Semoran Blvd., Suite 201, Orlando, FL 32807 Depression – Anxiety – Substance Abuse – Work/Life Balance PAGE 36
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
Law Week Judge Antoinette Plogstedt with students who participated in Day in the Life of a Judge
CFAWL and YLS Partners in Education Award Eric Reed Melanie Griffin Lynne Wassat, Principal, Rock Lake Elementary School
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
 
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 37
PAGE 38
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
 
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 39
2 0 11
Preferred Vendors
The Orange County Bar Association is pleased to provide you with a list of 2011 Preferred Vendors – a variety of businesses that have provided Central Floridians with time-tested, quality products and services, and are supporters of the Orange County Bar Association. We encourage you to take advantage of the products and services offered by these establishments. Many businesses on the list offer special promotions or discounts to help you continue to grow your practice and be successful both in the legal field and in the community.
Advertising The Baker Press, Inc. Finest quality printing since 1968 Dave Thompson • 3606 Silver Star Rd., Orlando, FL 32808 • 407-290-5800 x219 FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters business Websites and online marketing strategies To reach your local consultant, call 866-44-FINDLAW Living Magazines Inc./Vail Living Agency Innovative print & advertising design Catherine Hébert • P.O. Box 3905, Avon, CO 81620 • 970-331-6491 Banking M & I Bank Strength and stability in banking Monica Christopher • 501 E. Kentucky Blvd., #900, Tampa, FL 33602 • 813-204-1962 Catering Arthur’s Catering, Inc. Your event is as important to us as it is to you! Call us today. Mark A. Leggett • 860 Sunshine Ln., Altamonte Springs, FL 32714 • 407-331-1993 Legal Support Services LegalOne Partners, Inc. Paralegal firm outsourcing services to attorneys in most areas of law on an as-needed basis. 1004 Delridge Ave., Orlando, FL 32804 • 407-601-3966 • info@thinklegalone.com All Good Reporters, LLC Centrally located, All Good Reporters’ nationally certified real-time reporters “Capture Every Word”. Rita G. Meyer • P.O. Box 536084, Orlando, FL 32853 • 800-208-6291 rgm@AllGoodReporters.com Access Investigative Services, Inc. Civil & Criminal Investigations, Process Service Peter Cerone • 6239 Edgewater Dr., Ste. D-13, Orlando, FL 32810 • 407-447-6053 Boehm & Boehm Forensic Media Consulting Certified Comprehensive Litigation Support Solutions Florian Boehm • 5036 Dr. Phillips Blvd., Ste. 155, Orlando, FL 32819 • 407-405-8483 Riesdorph Reporting Group, Inc. We are a full-service court reporting firm committed to excellence and professionalism. Alex Guillermety • 150 N. Orange Ave., Ste. 418, Orlando, FL 32801 • 407-282-4067 Central Florida Reporters, Inc. Full-Service Court Reporting Firm Susan England • 105 E. Robinson St., Ste. 503, Orlando, FL 32801 • 407-422-5753 In Charge Education Foundation Online, Telephonic and Face to Face. Pre-filing Credit Counseling and Pre-discharge Debtor Education Beth Mason • 5750 Major Blvd., Ste. 310, Orlando, FL 32819 • 407-532-5759 Orange Reporting Florida’s Choice for Litigation Support Christa Walton • 1416 E. Robinson St., Orlando, FL 32801 • 407-898-4200 ProServe USA Service of Process/Skip Traces Rob Bamberg • 501 N. Magnolia Ave., Orlando, FL 32801 • 407-872-0707 Trial Consulting Services Trial Presentation, Research, Graphics, Video Rich O’Brien • 150 N. Orange Ave., Ste. 418, Orlando, FL 32801 • 407-367-4975 Westlaw, a Thomson Reuters business Westlaw, Legal Products and Services Barie Feuer • 407-749-9355 Charles Kiester • 321-356-5350
CLEs!
Get your CLEs at an incredible $ 15 per credit hour or less!
O
rder individual programs or take advantage of our new 30- or 15-credit hour packages, including ethics, at prices you won’t be able to beat. Download the CD and DVD list at www. orangecountybar.org, and purchase your CLEs today.
Miscellaneous Marsh U.S. Consumer, a service of Seabury & Smith, Inc. Professional Liability, Medical & Health Insurance Sharon Ecker • 3560 Lenox Rd., Ste. 2400, Atlanta, GA 30326 • 800-365-7335 Ext. 6435 Office Equipment/Services DEX imaging Copiers, Printers, Scanners & Document Management Michelle Nichols • 4126 John Young Pkwy., Orlando, FL 32804 • 407-294-4116 Professional Services JURIS Imaging & Graphics Providing Litigation Support Solutions to Law Firms throughout Central Florida. OCBA members receive 15% off by mentioning Vendor Marketplace Online. Carlos Vivanco • 100 E. Pine St., Ste. 606, Orlando, FL 32801 • 407-425-4244
It’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s a bargain! OCBA members – take advantage of this special pricing!
The business listed herein (the “Vendors”) are not affiliated with the Orange County Bar Association (OCBA) and shall not under any circumstances be deemed to have any authority to act on behalf of the OCBA. The OCBA does not make, and expressly disclaims, any warranty, representation, responsibility, or guarantee as to (a) the quality or suitability of the Vendors, their products, or services, and (b) the duration or validity of any discount or other promotion offered by any of the Vendors. PAGE 40
www.orangecountybar.org
Call 407-422-4551, ext. 225 for details.
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
New Associates
were sworn in to the Bar in a ceremony in the Moot Courtroom on the Barry Law School campus on April 15. The Honorable Jose R. Rodriguez, Circuit Judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida, conducted the swearing-in.
Taylor F. Ford – King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A. Heather Juster - Camy B. Schwam-Wilcox, P.A.
Upcoming Seminars
New Shareholder
June 1 – Lessons Learned of the Practice of Law During My Career. Criminal Law Committee. 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. OCBA Center. CLE: 1.0 pending. Speaker: Robert Eagan. Contact: mariew@ocbanet.org.
Fritz Wermuth – King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A.
Transitions
June 9 – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Claims Issues Related to VA Benefits. Social Security Committee. 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. OCBA Center. Contact: mariew@ocbanet.org.
Orange County Senior Judge Richard Conrad, a veteran of the Circuit Criminal Court system, passed away on March 7, 2011. Our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.
Speaking Engagements Michael Orfinger, principal of Upchurch Watson White & Max Mediation Group, in conjunction with the University of South Florida Conflict Resolution Collaborative, presented training for mediators interested in becoming Florida Supreme Court certified appellate mediators, April 5-7, at the University of South Florida campus in Tampa. S. Brent Spain of Theriaque & Spain recently presented Judicial Review of Local Zoning Decisions and a legislative update on growth management/land use law at a seminar hosted by the National Business Institute in Orlando. Ian L. Gilden of Ian L. Gilden, P.A., recently presented Ethics and the Unlicensed Practice of Law to the Central Florida Paralegal Association. David Henry of Henry Potter Civil Mediation presented a mediation seminar titled Pork Rinds at the Ballet - How to Settle the Impossible Case at the 2011 DRI Business Litigation and IP Seminar in Chicago, Illinois, on April 14, 2011. Aaron Gorovitz, Alex Dobrev, Mike Ryan and Amanda Wilson, attorneys with Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A., were presenters at the Real Estate Expo and Distressed Asset Conference, which was held in Orlando April 14, 2011. Gorovitz served as a moderator for a program on legal issues related to entitlements, permitting and CDDs for distressed and foreclosed property; Dobrev and Ryan commented on legal issues pertaining to today’s real estate market; Wilson spoke about tax issues of restructuring or acquiring debt.
Upcoming Events June 17 – Afternoon at the State Courthouse. 12:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Fee: $10. RSVP by Friday, June 10, 2011, to Jeffrey S. Elkins, at jse19@ dbksmn.com or 407-422-2454.
Other News The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society – Fundraising effort in memory of the late Judge Bob Wattles. For details, please contact Mark S. Blechman, Esq., at Mark4justice@aol.com or 407-895-8181. Tornado Relief – Southern Trial Counsel is serving as a local drop-off point for a national, grass roots effort to collect needed items for those affected by the recent tornados in the Tuscaloosa area. Take donations to: Southern Trial Counsel, 205 S. Eola Dr., Orlando, FL 32801. See the OCBA website for list of needed items.
June 9 – Expert Witnesses: Selecting, Disclosing, Discovering and Examining. Brown Bag Lunch with Judge J.M. Kest. Orange County Courthouse, Judicial Conference Room, 23rd Floor. CLE 1.5. Feel free to bring your lunch! Please tell security that you will be attending the Brown Bag Luncheon. To RSVP, contact Diane at ctjadi1@ocnjcc.org. June 10 – War and Peace: Negotiating Battles and Peace Treaties in ADR, Business Litigation, Appellate Courts, and the Legislature. Appellate Practice, Business Law and Professionalism committees. 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. OCBA Center. CLE: 6.0, including Ethics (3.5); Professionalism (3.0); Business Litigation Certification (4.5); Appellate Practice Certification (2.5). Fee: $35. See list of speakers, topics and agenda on the OCBA website. Registration ends June 3. Contact: mariew@ocbanet.org. June 14 – Basic Dissolution of Marriage with Children for Pro Bono Attorneys. LAS Lunchtime Training. 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Comerica Bank. CLE pending. Speaker: Angel Bello-Bellini, Attorney. Free for members. Limited enrollment. Contact: ctucker@legalaidocba.org; mcarbo@legalaidocba.org. June 14 – How to Prepare for an Emergency Temporary Guardianship Correctly. Estate, Guardianship & Trust Committee. 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. OCBA Center. CLE: 1.0. Speaker: David Brennan. Contact: mariew@ ocbanet.org. June 17 – Get to Know Judge Keith White. Family Law Committee. 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. OCBA Center. Contact: mariew@ocbanet.org. July 8 - Food for Thought seminar. Paralegal Section. OCBA. 11:30 a.m.1:00 p.m. Contact: Amy Guy at 407-601-4905. July 12 – Defenses to Garnishment. Legal Aid Society Lunchtime Training. 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m. Comerica Bank, 111 N. Magnolia Ave., Ste. 1000, Orlando, FL 32801. CLE pending. Speakers: Attorneys Larri Thatcher and Michael Resnick. Free for members. Contact: ctucker@ legalaidocba.org; mcarbo@legalaidocba.org. July 22 - Voir Dire - Basic Jury Selection. Brown Bag Lunch with Judge John M. Kest. 12:00 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Orange County Courthouse, 23rd Floor Judicial Conference Room. CLE: 1.5. Free. Please tell security that you will be attending the Brown Bag Lunch. Contact: Diane Iacone at 407-836-0443 or ctjadi1@ocnjcc.org. July 26 - The Basics of Special Education Law for Dependent Children. Legal Aid Society Lunchtime Training. (GAL topic) 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m. Comerica Bank, 111 N. Magnolia Ave., Ste. 1000, Orlando, FL 32801. CLE pending. Speaker: Bethanie Barber, Attorney. Free for members. Contact: ctucker@legalaidocba.org; mcarbo@legalaidocba.org. For updates, please check the OCBA website calendar.
Barry University – Ralph Nader, a four-time candidate for U.S. president and consumer advocate, spoke to students and faculty at the Barry University School of Law on April 7. He presented: The Law School’s Dilemma: Rule of Law or Rule of Power. Barry University – Graduates from the Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law who passed The Florida Bar exam in February
An n o u ncements
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 41
Allen & Murphy, P.A. Allen, Norton & Blue, P.A. Amy E. Goodblatt, P.A. Anthony-Smith Law, P.A. Billings, Morgan & Boatwright, LLC Bodiford Law Group Bonus McCabe Law Firm Bull and Associates, P.A. Burr & Forman LLP Calandrino Law Firm, P.A. Carr Law Firm, P.A. Carsten & Ladan, P.A Chaires, Brooderson & Guerrero, P.L. Cohen Battisti, Attorneys at Law DeCiccio & Johnson Dellecker Wilson King McKenna & Ruffier, LLP Dempsey & Associates Dewitt Law Firm, P.A. Diaz Law Earle & Smith Trial Attorneys Englert, Leite & Martin, P.L. Faddis & Faddis, P.A. Fishback, Dominick, Bennett, Stepter, Ardman, Ahlers & Langley, LLP Fisher, Rushmer, Werrenrath, Dickson, Talley & Dunlap, P.A Giles & Robinson, P.A. Gregory S. Martin & Associates, P.A. Harris, Harris, Bauerle & Sharma Hilyard, Bogan & Palmer, P.A. Innes Law Firm James H. Monroe, P.A. Jill S. Schwartz & Associates, P.A. King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder, P.A. Kirkconnell, Lindsey, Snure, & Ponall, P.A. Korshak & Associates, P.A. Kosto & Rotella, P.A. Law Office of Frank P. Remsen, P.A. Law Offices of Blair T. Jackson, P.A. Law Offices of Neal T. McShane, P.A. Law Offices of Walter F. Benanati Credit Attorney, P.A. Legal Aid Society of the OCBA Lewis & Crichton, Attorneys at Law
Marcus & Myers, P.A. Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin, P.A. McElyea & Barnard, P.A. McMichen, Cinami & Demps McMillen Law Firm, P.A. Michael R. Walsh, P.A. Mooney Colvin, P.L. Murrah, Doyle and Wigle, P.A. N. Diane Holmes, P.A. Neduchal & MaGee, P.A. Ossinsky & Cathcart, P.A. Page, Eichenblatt, Bernbaum & Bennett, P.A. Provencher & Simmons, P.A. Ringer Henry Buckley & Seacord, PA Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell, P.A. Sawyer & Sawyer, PA SeifertMiller, LLC Southern Trial Counsel, PLC Stovash, Case & Tingley, P.A. Tangel-Rodriguez & Associates The Aikin Family Law Group The Brennan Law Firm The Carlyle Appellate Law Firm The Draves Law Firm, P.A. The Law Office of Frank A. Hamner, P.A. The Law Offices of Terry L. Bledsoe, P.A. The Marks Law Firm, P.A. The McMahon Law Group, P.A. The Morsch Law Group The Rosenthal Law Firm, P.A. The Skambis Law Firm Troutman, Williams, Irvin, Green, Helms, Polich & Hemphill P.A. Vose Law Firm, LLC Warner + Warner, P.L. Weiss, Grunor & Weiss West, Green & Associates, P.L. Wicker, Smith, O’Hara, McCoy & Ford, P.A. William G. Osborne, P.A. Winderweedle, Haines, Ward & Woodman, P.A Wolff, Hill, McFarlin & Herron, P.A. Wooten, Kimbrough and Normand, P.A. Yergey and Yergey, P.A.
Congratulations to Members of the OCBA’s 100% Club Is your firm part of the 100% Club? Firms with two or more attorneys and 100% membership in the OCBA can belong! If you believe your firm is eligible, please call the Membership Department at 407-422-4551, ext. 225.
H O WA R D R . M A R S E E
CLARAMARGARET H.GROOVER Certified Circuit Civil Mediator since 1995 Fifth District Court of Appeal Approved Mediator Florida Bar Board Certified Construction Lawyer Complex multi-party matters – Commercial, Real Estate, Construction (407) 956-1085 or contact
chgroover@grooverlawfirm.com PAGE 42
www.orangecountybar.org
Mediator Special Master Arbitrator Certified Circuit Civil Mediator Since 1996. Member: Academy of Court-Appointed Masters. Author: Utilizing Special Masters in Florida (Oct. '07 Florida Bar Journal). Qualified to Mediate State & Federal Cases. Experienced Arbitrator of Complex Matters.
Upchurch Watson White & Max 800-863-1462 uww-adr.com Maitland
Daytona Beach Miami Birmingham
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
CLASSIFIED ADS EMPLOYMENT ALVAREZ, SAMBOL & WINTHROP, P.A, A Full Service AV rated firm has immediate openings for Commercial Litigation and General Liability Practice Groups. Successful candidates will have five to ten years experience. Portable business is a plus. Please forward resume in confidence to, Firm Administrator, Alvarez, Sambol & Winthrop, P.A., P.O. Box 3511, Orlando, Florida 32802 or email to hrf@ aswpa.com. PUERTO RICO/FLORIDA COMMERCIAL LITIGATION FIRM seeks Florida licensed attorney also licensed in Puerto Rico for firm’s Tampa Bay area office. Outstanding academic credentials and successful employment history required. Occasional travel to firm’s PR office may be required. Position offers highly competitive compensation package along with immediate client contact and major case responsibility. All inquires will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. Please send your resume to lawofficehr@yahoo.com ORLANDO BASED A-V RATED FIRM seeks attorney experienced in family law. General litigation experience a plus. Creative compensation packages available with excellent benefits and working conditions. Send resume in confidence to denise@boginmunns.com or fax to 407-578-2128. AV-RATED DOWNTOWN LAW FIRM seeking 2-3 year experienced Insurance Defense and Commercial Litigation Attorney. Candidate must possess excellent communication skills (oral and written) and be a non-smoker. We offer great benefits with a competitive salary. If interested, please email your resume to Partner c/o kss25@dbksmn.com or fax to 407-992-3595. “AV” RATED CIVIL LITIGATION FIRM seeking litigation attorneys for our Orlando office. Minimum 5 years litigation experience. Strong advocacy skills required. We offer competitive salary, plus comprehensive benefits package. Send resume to: Hiring Partner, Ogden, Sullivan & O’Connor, PA, 113 S. Armenia Avenue, Tampa, FL 33609, or to cbostic@ogdensullivan.com SPECIALTY DEFENSE FIRM handling first party property/liability coverage issues and complex contractual/ tort litigation seeks attorneys with 3-5 and 5-10 years litigation experience for its Maitland office. Insurance defense experience preferred. Fax/Mail resume to: Office Manager (407) 647-9966, The Rock Law Group, P.A., 1760 Fennell St., Maitland, Florida 32751
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
“AV” RATED ORLANDO LAW FIRM, seeks attorneys, one with one to three years’ experience and one with five plus years’ experience for its commercial litigation practice, employment law experience helpful but not required. Creative incentive based compensation arrangements available. Reply in confidence to denise@boginmunns.com or fax to 407-578-2128. ORLANDO FIRM SEEKS BI-LINGUAL ATTORNEY with 2-4 years experienced personal injury attorney for our trial team. Outstanding opportunity to join growing dynamic firm with excellent benefits and compensation package. Send resume in confidence to reply box 701. DOWNTOWN ORLANDO AV RATED FIRM seeks attorney with 2 years commercial litigation experience. Great work environment and excellent benefit package. Send resume in confidence to Administrator, P.O. Box 3388, Orlando, Florida 32802-3388 EXPERIENCED COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE PARALEGAL NEEDED for very busy downtown Orlando law firm with growing commercial Real Estate practice. Strong banking experience is a MUST. Must have a pro-active attitude toward work assignments. Great work environment and competitive salary and benefits. Send resume in confidence to jholt@ southmilhausen.com or via facsimile to (407) 539-2679.
O F F I C E S PAC E SHARED SHARE NEWLY RENOVATED OFFICE DOWNTOWN Class A Bldg. - Covered Parking - Conference Room - All Facilities Included. Please contact Eddie Reiss at 407-447-5884 or emrholdings@aol.com. DOWNTOWN OFFICE SPACE: Luxury office space for space sharing across from courthouse for one attorney and separate, adjoining space for one staff. Garage parking, shared reception area, receptionist, conference room, library, kitchen, copier, fax and Internet included. 407-425-4044
O F F I C E S PAC E FOR SALE/RENT/ LEASE OFFICE BLDG FOR SALE / LEASE: Near intersection of Kaley & Ferncreek Ave. Convenient to Downtown &/or Juvenile Ct. on Michigan St. 1600 sq. ft. Open floor plan with separate executive office and conference
To reply to BRIEFS box number, address as follows: Briefs Reply Box # _____ c/o Orange County Bar Association, P.O. Box 530085 • Orlando, FL 32853-0085
room. Recently renovated and ready for occupancy. Call John @ (407) 2226712 TURN-KEY LARGE 3 OFFICE SPACE (1-10 people) with 15th Floor Downtown window view Plaza BldgNorth immediately available for lease take-over. $3600. Many extra’s included, state of the art conference rooms and technology available. Possible incentives offered for immediate take-over. Keri Brown 407-377-6805 or keri.brown@ youroffice.com LAW OFFICE AVAILABLE; private, second floor suite, approximately 1000 square feet overlooking Lake Ivanhoe. Available immediately. Ample parking; contact: david@yergeylaw. com; 407-843-0430 office; 407-2478756 cell. David Yergey, Jr. is an OCBA member VIRTUAL OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE-convenient downtown location. Full service including receptionist, mail service, conference rooms, fax machine, copy machine, etc. Package rates available-customize according to your needs. Call Cori at 407-9561000 for pricing and more details. OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE FOR RENT. Approximately 1,537 sq ft., with furniture, phone system, receptionist area and 4 window offices, 2 large enough for attorneys and 2 for paralegals. Attorneys preferred. Please contact Denise Singler at 407-578-1334 or e-mail denise@boginmunns.com. OFFICE/CONFERENCE SPACE FOR RENT: Downtown Orlando Executive Business Center- newly renovated fully furnished offices for rent. Includes: live receptionist, phone, internet, conference/mediation/seminar space, and FREE parking. Contact Janna (407)447-1919 for more information OFFICE BUILDING/SPACE: DOWNTOWN - Completely Renovated and Upgraded Old Two-Story House (Circa 1919), Hardwood Floors/ Wood Trim, parking - MUST SEE. (407)648-1500
parking, includes phone, Internet, utilities, conf room, lobby area and secretarial space. Monthly lease. $1000 – Call Becki at 407-481-2888. www. BumbyOffices.com
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ATTORNEYS PHOTOS SPECIALS - Now is the time to Update your professional bio Photos. Our exclusive Digital Slimming and Digital Makeup makes your new photo the best ever 407-240-4954 Orlandophotographer. com/attorneys APPELLATE BRIEF WRITING – both civil and criminal. Competitive rates. Contact Katharine Ballingrud. khballin@gmail.com; (407) 514-2621. THE LEGAL MEDICINE GROUP - “Excellence in Medical Records PreScreening Reviews and Affidavits”. * Litigation Support Services * All Board Certified Reviewers and Expert Witness * Medical Malpractice, Personal Injury and Product Liability * 407-790-4080 legalmedicinegroup@yahoo.com www. legalmedicinegroup.com
MISCELLANEOUS SELLING BEAUTIFUL OFFICE FURNITURE – L-shaped secretarial desk, with credenza and chair, and two file cabinets (1 two drawer and 1 four drawer). Please contact Michelle at 321 438 3613 for viewing. All offers will be considered.
Classified Ads: williamr@ ocbanet.org 407-422-4551 ext. 225
DOWNTOWN OFFICE LEASE 1000 Sq Ft $1200.00/mo, Colonialtown South, Stand alone, plenty of parking, 407-895-7557 DOWNTOWN – NEAR COURTHOUSE - Elegantly restored historic building on the corner of E. Pine and Court Street. Offices for 1-6 attorneys and staff. Share receptionist, conference rooms, etc. 407-426-2060 or tmhoepker@yahoo.com FURNISHED SUITES – near downtown, free-standing bldg w/ dedicated
www.orangecountybar.org
PAGE 43
OCBA Calendar
Mayanne Downs Thursday, June 16, 2011 11:30 p.m. The Ballroom at Church St. RSVP by Friday, June 10, 2011 reservations@ocbanet.org
JUNE - JULY 2011
June Law Committee Seminar 1 Criminal Lessons Learned of the Practice of Law
OCBA Luncheon 16 Mayanne Downs, President,
The Florida Bar 11:30 a.m. • The Ballroom at Church Street
During My Career 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
17
Family Law Committee Seminar Get to Know Judge Keith White 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Law Committee 2 Bankruptcy 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center Society 8 Literary 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center Estate, Guardianship Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
9
Social Security Seminar Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Claims Issues Related to VA Benefits 11:30 a.m. • Bar Center
Family Law Executive Board Meeting 1:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Family Law Executive Board Meeting 1:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Professionalism Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
19 Law Committee 20 Insurance 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center Luncheon 21 YLS 12:00 p.m. • Citrus Club
Labor & Employment Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Brown Bag Lunch with Judge Kest Expert Witnesses 12:00 p.m. • Courthouse 23rd Flr. Judicial Conference Rm.
14 Law Committee Seminar 15 Family 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Social Security Seminar 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Afternoon at the State Courthouse 12:30 p.m. • Orange County Courthouse
Professionalism Committee 21 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center Law Committee 22 Appellate 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Executive Council Meeting 4:30 p.m. • Bar Center
Executive Council Meeting 4:30 p.m. • Bar Center
Appellate Law Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Criminal Law Committee Meeting 24 Brown Bag Lunch with Judge Kest 12:00 p.m. • Café Annie’s 22 Voir Dire – Basic Jury Selection Solo & Small Firm Committee Meeting 12:00 p.m. • Courthouse 28 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center 23 Flr. Judicial Conference Rm. Lunchtime Training (GAL) 26 LAS The Basics of Special Education Law July for Dependent Children 12:00 p.m. • Comerica Bank Independence Day 4 Bar Closed OCBA Luncheon 27 11:30 a.m. • The Ballroom at Church Street Paralegal Section Seminar 8 11:30 a.m. • Bar Center rd
10
Appellate, Business & Professionalism Committees War & Peace 8:30 a.m. • Bar Center Workers’ Compensation Committee 11:45 a.m. • Smokey Bones
14
Estate, Guardianship Committee How to Prepare for an Emergency Temporary Guardianship Correctly 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Appellate Law Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Workers’ Compensation Committee 11:45 a.m. • Smokey Bones
LAS Lunchtime Training Basic Dissolution of Marriage with Children for Pro Bono Attorneys (Part I) 12:00 p.m. • Comerica Bank
29
Bankruptcy Law Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
12
LAS Lunchtime Training Defenses to Garnishment 12:00 p.m. • Comerica Bank
13
15
Estate, Guardianship Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center
Elder Law Committee 12:00 p.m. • Bar Center YLS Luncheon 11:45 a.m. • Citrus Club
Judicial Relations Committee 12:15 p.m. • Courthouse 21st Flr. Conference Rm.
For updates, please check the OCBA website calendar.
PAGE 44
www.orangecountybar.org
the Briefs June 2011 Vol. 79 No. 6
ARE YOU
ACCOUNTABLE
FOR
YOUR WORK?
Do you ask your clients to pay for your mistakes? Health Care Providers should be accountable for their mistakes. At Gunn Law Group, P.A.,
we believe in accountability. We are honored to receive the vast majority of our case referrals from fellow Bar members, with whom we share fees in accordance with the Bar Rules.
• Insurance Coverage • Bad Faith • Serious Personal Injury ADVOCATING FOR JUSTICE
• Product Liability • Medical Malpractice
4 0 0 N . A s h l e y D r i v e / S u i t e 2 0 5 0 / Ta m p a , F L 3 3 6 0 2 8 1 3 - 2 2 8 - 7 0 7 0 / 8 6 6 - G U N N L AW / w w w. g u n n l a w g r o u p . c o m
880 North Orange Avenue Orlando, Florida 32801
PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ORLANDO FL PERMIT 2530