Navigation Florida’s Local Professionalism Panels have filed their first full cycle of mandatory, semi-annual reports since the Supreme Court issued In Re: Code for Resolving Professionalism Referrals last summer. Without naming respondents, the December 2023-June 2024 reports cite behavior that ranged from being rude to a judicial assistant and soliciting clients at a local jail, to […]
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Supreme Court declines to erase ‘zealous advocacy’ from Bar rules
The Supreme Court has declined a proposal to scrub so-called “Z” words – “zeal,” “zealous,” and “zealously,” from the Bar’s rulebook. Acting July 30 in In Re: Amendments to the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar Chapter 4, Case No. 2024-0032, justices disagreed with proponents of the rule change who asserted that the term is associated […]
Governors makes a Bay County judicial appointment
Gov. Ron DeSantis September 3 appointed Tracy Smith to the Bay County bench. Smith, of Lynn Haven, has served as an assistant state attorney for the 14th Judicial Circuit since 2020. Previously, she served as the insurance and risk manager for the Bay County School Board. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of […]
JEAC’s latest opinion on judges with family ties to prosecutors
Are county court judges required to recuse themselves from cases at bond hearings or on warrant duty when the judge’s spouse is the chief of the felony division at the State Attorney’s Office in the same county where the judge presides? Yes, according to the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, if the spouse is the “boss,” […]
Florida court dismisses lawsuit linking Zantac to plaintiff’s prostate cancer
A Florida state court last month handed the manufacturers of the heartburn drug Zantac another legal victory by dismissing a plaintiff’s claim that Zantac caused his prostate cancer and finding that the plaintiff’s expert testimony was unreliable. On Aug. 19, Florida’s 13th Judicial Circuit Court in Hillsborough County issued the order dismissing the lawsuit brought […]