GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS APPOINTS TWO NEW JUDGES

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Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced two judicial appointments: one to the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court and one to the Palm Beach County Court.

John Parnofiello, of Jupiter, to serve as Judge on the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court

Parnofiello has served as a Judge on the Palm Beach County Court since his appointment by Governor DeSantis in 2021. Previously, he served as an Assistant State Attorney for five years in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. He received his bachelor’s degree and law degree from the University of Florida. Parnofiello fills the judicial vacancy created by the elevation of Justice Renatha Francis.

 

Stephanie Tew, of Palm Beach Gardens, to serve as Judge on the Palm Beach County Court

Tew has served as Chief Assistant Statewide Prosecutor for the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution since 2011. Previously, she served as an Associate at the Law Firm of Cindy Goldstein and as Assistant State Attorney in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina and her law degree from Florida Coastal School of Law. Tew fills the judicial vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Melanie Surber.

COURT CLOSURES

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Chief Judge Kelley has announced that due to the National Hurricane Center’s forecast that Tropical Storm Nicole will become a hurricane as it reaches southeast Florida, the courts of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit will be closed Wednesday, November 9, and Thursday, November 10.   The courts are closed on Friday, November 11 in recognition of Veterans’ Day.

PLEASE NOTE:  First Appearance hearings on Wednesday will be held at the normal time, 10:00 a.m.  First Appearances on Thursday will take place at 1:30 p.m.  

The Courts will reopen on Monday, November 14.

Uptick in Firm Focus On DEI: Steady Trend or a Passing Fad?

Diversity Corner1

Published: November 2022
Written by: Jason McIntosh 

The social and economic benefits of a diverse, inclusive, and equitable legal industry have been highlighted, discussed, and emphasized frequently in recent years.  The Florida Bar recognizes that minorities are significantly underrepresented in the legal profession when compared with the general population.  Fair representation and equal access are crucial to an unbiased system of justice.  Tangible progress towards improving that disparity has been shown in data collected by various organizations.  But what remains discouraging is how much that progress slows each step up the legal profession’s ladder.

According to the 2020 Census, Florida’s race and ethnicity demographic breakdown was 73.2% white, 17.2% Black, 3.9% Asian with 26.5% of the population identifying as Hispanic or Latino.

According to the Florida Bar Economics and Law Office Management Survey, in 2021, 81 percent of Florida Bar members were white, 11 percent Hispanic/Latino, 4 percent Black/African-American, 1 percent Asian, and 3 percent were categorized as Other.

At the law school level, the numbers have shown the greatest level of progress.   Over the last 20 years at least 1 out of 5 law school students can be classified as belonging to a racial or ethnic minority, according to data collected by the American Bar Association (ABA).

As one may expect that progress has revealed itself in overall gains year over year in the placement and hiring of diverse candidates at summer associate/clerk level.  According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) Report on Diversity at U.S. Law Firms, this year’s summer associate class at U.S. Law firms was ‘the most diverse ever’.   The percentage of summer associates of color grew by nearly 5 percentage points in a single year, the largest gain the 29 years that NALP has been tracking the information.  Women made up more than half of all summer associates for the fourth year in a row, and the proportion of LGBTQ summer associates increased to 8.41% which was also a historic high. 

As noted by NALP Executive Director James G. Leipold in the report “The challenge for the industry is to retain, train, develop, and promote this talented and diverse pool of new lawyers so that 5 years from now the associate ranks as a whole reflect similar diversity and representation, and 10 or 15 years from now we can celebrate a partnership class that is similarly diverse.” 

And therein lies the problem.  Progress is much slower amongst the associate ranks and certainly when it comes to partnership.  Among the firms that submitted data to NALP, lawyers of color accounted for less than 28% of all associates in 2021, and less than 11% of law firm partners.  Additionally, when you break down the racial demographics even further the year-over-year growth among Black associates and partners all lag behind the corresponding numbers of Asian and Latino attorneys.    Black lawyers accounted for 5% of associates in 2021 and 2% of partners. The data shows 6.1%/2.86% and 12.5%/4.3% for Latinos and Asian attorneys respectively.

The numbers are even more alarming gender dynamics are accounted for.   According to Leipold, “Less than 4% of partners are women of color… [with] Black and Latinx women each continued to represent less than 1% of all partners ins U.S. law firms”

The optimist in me is hopeful that despite the incremental increases that the trend continues upward as firms continue to see the financial and social benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion.  However, the cynical part of me sees the recent data as a potential outlier in response to much of the civil unrest and many social justice movements that we saw after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others in 2020. 

In the aftermath of some of the protests, demonstrations, and demands for change, many corporations made it a priority to increase the diversity of their personnel, the spotlight of minority-created content services and goods, and increase their support for minority businesses and charitable causes.  As often happens with our news cycle hot button issues are out of sight and out of mind.  It’s easy to focus on an initiative when it’s the current event, but an issue that is as complex as this will take years of intentional and deliberate action to correct.

There is no doubt that the disparity has been recognized and efforts are being made to rectify the issue.  However, making sure these changes continue to trickle up the legal hierarchy is where the real challenge lies.   

As co-chair of the Palm Beach County Bar Association’s Committee for Diversity and Inclusion and as a Black partner at a reputable firm in the county I want to prioritize taking this challenge head-on.  That is why we’ve created a new “Law Firm Outreach” subcommittee chaired by Amelia Jadoo.  We have plans to try and identify, spotlight, and give a platform for qualified diverse attorneys and help to put them in positions to have success.

Jason McIntosh is a partner at Lytal Reiter Smith Ivey and Fronrath, and he practices in the area of Personal Injury

To Sign or Not to Sign – There Shouldn’t be any Question

ADR Corner3

Published: November 2022
Written by: Adam Myron 

“Really?  I didn’t know that” is a common refrain I hear at the end of court-ordered mediation – a time when surprise is the last emotion I, as the mediator, want to elicit.  And yet, it’s the response I often get after informing attorneys that they, as well as their clients, are required to sign mediated settlement agreements.  (I imagine more than half the readers of this article are having a similar reaction right now.)  Whether or not you think the rule makes sense, it’s true: settlement agreements arising out of court-ordered mediations must be executed by the parties and their counsel; and there are many excellent reasons that attorneys should do so even if they regard it as superfluous.

First and foremost, the rules require it.  Specifically, Rule 1.730(b) provides that “[i]f a partial or final agreement is reached, it must be reduced to writing and signed by the parties and their counsel, if any.”  As lawyers, the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar prohibit us from “knowingly disobey[ing] an obligation under the rules of a tribunal except for an open refusal based on an assertion that no valid obligation exists.”  R. Reg. Fla. Bar. 4-3.4.

Second, Rule 1.730 requires that a mediator report to the court whether or not an agreement has been reached and mandates that “[n]o partial or final agreement under this rule may be reported to the court except as provided” in 1.730(b).  Id.  Because Rule 1.730(b) requires the parties and their counsel to sign an agreement, a mediator cannot report the existence of an agreement unless that requirement has been met.  Florida’s Mediator Ethics Advisory Committee (MEAC) weighed in on the ethical obligations of certified mediators in this regard, writing in MEAC Opinion 2012-09 that “[b]oth the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure require that an agreement be in writing and signed by the parties (and their counsel, if any), in order to constitute an agreement. Without meeting these requirements, there is no agreement.” 

Third, Rule 1.730(c) provides that “[i]n the event of any breach or failure to perform under the agreement, the court upon motion may impose sanctions, including costs, attorneys’ fees, or other appropriate remedies including entry of judgment on the agreement.”  Id.  If the attorneys did not sign a settlement agreement that a party later claims was breached, the court will not have the “teeth” of Rule 1.730(c) at its disposal to enforce the agreement.

Fourth, an attorney’s failure to sign a settlement agreement reached during a court-ordered mediation could render the agreement unenforceable.  In Gordon v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, 641 So. 2d 515 (3d DCA 1994), the Third District considered the flip-side of the equation when a party’s attorney, but not the party, signed a settlement agreement prepared during a court-ordered mediation.  Noting that Rule 1.730(b) “clearly mandates” that “a settlement agreement reached during mediation” must “be reduced to writing and executed both by the parties and their respective counsel” the court determined that “the parties … did not effectuate a settlement agreement in accordance with the dictates” of the rule.  Id. at 517 (emphasis in original).  In Freedman v. Fraser Eng’g & Testing, Inc., 927 So. 2d 949, 953 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), the Fourth District cited Gordon and noted in dicta that although the issue was not raised on appeal, the fact that a proposed mediated agreement was not signed by all the parties and their counsel would have defeated the appellant’s argument that the agreement should have been enforced. 

To be sure, this issue is not wholly settled in Florida.  For example, in Jordan v. Adventist Health Sys./Sunbelt, 656 So. 2d 200, 202 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995), the Fifth District distinguished Gordon, affirming an order enforcing a settlement agreement that lacked the signatures of counsel where “the parties to be bound [executed] the document” and “but for the mediation rule, the missing signatures would be superfluous.”  Nevertheless, given the uncertainty in the law and all the other reasons that weigh in favor of signing mediated settlement agreements (even if merely “as counsel and solely to comply with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.730(b)”), when confronted with the question of whether or not to sign, should there really be any question?

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Adam Myron is an attorney with the law firm of Cagnet Myron Law, P.A., where, as a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Mediator and a Florida Qualified Arbitrator, he focuses a large part of his practice on alternative dispute resolution.  Adam is also a civil litigator in the fields of complex business litigation, trust & estate litigation, and professional liability litigation. You can email Adam at [email protected] and learn more about him by visiting https://cagnetmyronlaw.com/about/attorneys/adam-myron/.

For additional ADR tips and resources, go to https://www.palmbeachbar.org/alternative- dispute-resolution-committee/.