florida

Why You Should Become a Board-Certified Lawyer

The Florida Bar reports there over 93,000 lawyers eligible to practice law. Demand for legal services is on the rise as droves of out-of-state consumers and their businesses relocate to Florida. To meet this demand, law firms have aggressively been recruiting lawyers particularly in specialty areas such as real estate, construction and corporate law. In the wake of these developments, lawyers can best position themselves to achieve success by becoming a board-certified specialist.

Board certification is administered by eight national private organizations with eighteen certification programs accredited by the American Bar Association. These private certification programs include specialty areas in bankruptcy, criminal trial advocacy, patent litigation, and complex litigation. Many state bar associations also administer board certification programs. For example, Florida has the largest number of certification specialty areas, at 27, which range from marital and family law to criminal law, construction, real estate, and workers’ compensation. Board certification is Florida’s official, independent determination of a lawyer’s expertise to practice in a specialty area of law. As noted on its website, “It is the gold standard for Florida lawyers, representing a recognition by a lawyer’s peers that they have attained a level of professional expertise in their chosen field.”

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September 16, 2022 by ATTORNEY

17 property insurance companies face ratings downgrade in Florida

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — More than a dozen property insurance companies are set to have their ratings downgraded in Florida.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation confirmed to 8 On Your Side Thursday that 17 insurance companies total are going to be downgraded by the rating agency Demotech. Industry experts say that downgrade will impact hundreds of thousands of families across Florida – including in the Tampa Bay area.

Mortgage providers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require homeowners to have a policy with an A-rated company. Anyone who has a policy with any of the 17 companies that will be losing its A-rating could be forced to find a new policy – potentially one that could cost more and provide less coverage.

8 On Your Side is working to find out which companies are having their ratings downgraded.

Meanwhile, Demotech’s decision to downgrade the companies is being challenged by the FOIR. Commissioner David Altmaier is requesting the rating agency reconsider the conclusions they’ve reached about the viability of the companies.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office sent the following statement after the announcement was made:

“We share the concerns expressed by Florida’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis and the Office

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July 27, 2022 by INSURANCE

Citizen’s Property Insurance facing 900 new lawsuits a month

One month after state lawmakers were summoned back to Tallahassee to fix Florida’s broken homeowner’s insurance industry, the crisis continues.

“As we sit here today, we are just under 19,000, but quickly approaching 19,000 lawsuits,” said Elaina Paskalakis of Citizen’s Property Insurance, during a claims committee meeting earlier this month.

Citizens, the sate-backed insurer of last resort isn’t just facing mounting litigation, it is also absorbing some 12,000 policies a month.

READ: New affordable housing community for seniors opens in Orange County

“Last year at this time they (Citizens) were growing at about 5,000 policies a week, so they are growing exponentially more,” says State Senator Jeff Brandes (R-Pinellas). “They have about $6 billion in cash and about $300 billion in potential liability if they have a big storm.”

With police and lawsuits piling up, Citizens recently approved $50 million for litigation costs, with the state-backed insurer set to approve another $50 million when it meets again in July.

“It is all hands on deck at Citizens, and frankly I don’t know how they are going to manage all this, we would never let a private insurance company grow as fast as citizens is growing right now,” says Brandes.

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July 1, 2022 by INSURANCE

Florida Supreme Court Disciplines 19 Attorneys—Including a Former State Attorney

Florida Supreme Court Disciplines 19 Attorneys—Including a Former State Attorney

The Florida Supreme Court recently disciplined 19 attorneys, including a former state attorney, the Florida Bar Association announced on May 31.

Former State Attorney Jeffrey Siegmeister received permanent disciplinary revocation, which involves agreeing to surrender his license rather than contesting the disciplinary charges, according to the association’s senior communications coordinator Leslie Smith.

Siegmeister pleaded guilty on Feb. 22 to four felonies—including conspiracy, extortion, fraud, and filing a false 2015 tax return, the first of three years for which that charge had been filed—while he was the elected prosecutor for a seven-county area, according to a Feb. 23 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville.

The former North Florida state attorney is facing a “maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit extortion and wire fraud, five years in federal prison for conspiring to use a facility of commerce for bribery and extortion, and three years in federal prison for filing a false tax return,” according to the office.

It added that Siegmeister had agreed to forfeit almost $519,000, along with more than 7,300 shares of Coca-Cola Company common stock.

The 53-year-old Republican was a state attorney from 2013 to 2019, when he

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June 6, 2022 by ATTORNEY
December 2024
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