The purpose of this summary provided by the Communications Department of The Florida Bar is to present media coverage that may be of interest to members. Opinions expressed in the articles are attributable solely to the authors. The Florida Bar does not adopt or endorse any opinions expressed below. For information on previous articles, please contact the publishing newspaper directly.
May 10, 2022
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The Florida Bar
QUESTIONS ABOUT DIGITAL ADVERTISING?
The Florida Bar | Article | May 10, 2022
The Florida Bar Assistant Ethics Counsel Heather Savage Telfer answers some of the most common questions lawyers may have about digital advertising. Digital advertising, she explains, follows the same rules as more tangible forms of advertising, which can be found in subchapter 4-7 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar. Read on for in-depth answers to questions about recent changes to the advertising rule, using social media or YouTube for advertising, and more.
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Legislative
FLORIDA FIRES BACK IN REDISTRICTING LAWSUIT
News Service of Florida | Article | May 09, 2022
On Monday [May 9], two days before Leon County Circuit Judge Layne Smith is scheduled to hold a hearing on a request for a temporary injunction to block a new congressional redistricting plan, attorneys for Secretary of State Laurel Lee have filed arguments claiming that plaintiffs in the lawsuit want to “revert to some racially gerrymandered” map that would stretch a district across a swath of North Florida to elect a Democrat. The case centers on Congressional District 5, which in recent years has stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee and has tied together communities to help elect a Black candidate.
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Judiciary
FROM THOMAS TO TOMÁS: ARE SOUTH FLORIDA CANDIDATES FOR JUDGE CHANGING THEIR NAMES TO WIN HISPANIC VOTES?
Daily Business Review | Article | May 06, 2022
During a Judicial Candidate Town Hall, one attorney asked a question about the alleged decades-old campaign tactic of candidates altering their names to appear more attractive to a dominant segment of the South Florida electorate. Although this prompted criticism of one current candidate, Teressa Maria Cervera, who changed her last name directly before the primary election, judicial ethics expert Scott Fingerhut explains that Cervera is among a group of South Florida candidates who have been accused of playing this “name game” in popular elections. And, he says, it works. “Not always, but often enough. And often to unseat qualified judges.”
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Civil Justice
FLORIDA CAMPUS SURVEYS UNDER SCRUTINY IN LAWSUIT. ‘A POLITICAL TOOL.’
Tampa Bay Times | Article | May 09, 2022
An early draft of the “intellectual freedom” surveys that Florida’s public colleges and universities are required to distribute was released as evidence in a lawsuit challenging the annual surveys. The suit was filed by the state faculty union, five professors and three students who argue that the new law chills speech by trying to gauge whether politics seeps into the classroom. The draft was later modified to be more general, but the lawsuit contends that this draft suggests that these surveys are part of escalating efforts by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders to challenge what they see as a liberal bent on Florida’s college and university campuses.
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Criminal Justice
LATEST EXONERATION SHOWS NEED FOR CONVICTION INTEGRITY UNITS
Sun Sentinel | Editorial | May 09, 2022
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board writes: “The criminal justice system often fails to distinguish the innocent from the guilty because it cares more about the process than the result. If all the rules are followed and a trial judge does nothing for an appeals court to overturn, the wrong person could rot in prison . . . Recognizing this, some conscientious prosecutors have set up special offices to consider innocence claims from prisoners who have exhausted their appeals. But that trend conflicts with the traditional devotion of state attorneys general to defending convictions on appeal. Several current Florida cases illustrate the problem.”
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Judiciary
TRAFFIC COURT ON THE HUNT FOR HEARING OFFICERS
Sun Sentinel | Article | May 09, 2022
In Broward County, the traffic court run by the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit has thousands of cases to hear and only 20 people to hear them. The court is now looking to hire more hearing officers to preside over more than 6,000 civil traffic court cases a year. It’s a busy docket, with each hearing officer handling anywhere from 150 to 400 cases a month, said court spokeswoman Meredith Bush.
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Judiciary
600-DAY RETIREMENT CLOCK TICKING FOR JUDGES TERENCE PERKINS, RAUL ZAMBRANO AND JAMES CLAYTON
Flagler Live | Article | May 09, 2022
In January 2024, the nominating commission for the Seventh Judicial Circuit will be busy interviewing lawyers for prospective appointments to three circuit judgeships created by vacancies resulting from the retirement of Terence Perkins, Raul Zambrano, and James Clayton, all of whom are set to retire in December 2023. Judge Perkins revealed the exact timing of his and his fellow-judges’ retirements during a brief recess Friday [May 6]. “Zambrano, Clayton and I are all retiring at the same time,” he said. “And so Zambrano went out and bought [a] countdown clock [for] each of us, so all three of us have it all synced to the same day. I think it’s 607 days.”
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Legal Profession
PRO BONO: LAW STUDENTS ASSIST OLDER ADULTS TO CREATE ADVANCE DIRECTIVE DOCUMENTS
Jacksonville Daily Record | Article | May 05, 2022
The Alternative Spring Break Advance Directives Project of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid offers University of Florida law students an opportunity to spend their spring break helping low-income older adults create advance directive documents. After a day of training, the students joined a group of notaries and volunteer lawyers at three senior housing facilities to bring this much-needed service to some of the communities most vulnerable and underserved individuals.
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Tech Tip
HOW TO SET DEFAULT PAGE MAGNIFICATION IN ADOBE ACROBAT TO 100 PERCENT
The Florida Bar | Tech Tip | May 11, 2022
By default, Adobe Acrobat displays PDFs based on the magnification settings used by the document’s creator, which may require the recipient to manually set the magnification to their preference every time they open a new PDF document. However, with a few steps, it’s easy to change these default settings so that you no longer need to spend valuable document-viewing time adjusting the magnification to suit your needs.