Col. Bradshaw wins Bar’s Claude Pepper Outstanding Government Lawyer Award
COL. JOSEPH A. BRADSHAW, JR., received the Claude Pepper Outstanding Government Lawyer Award from President Gwynne Young at the Bar’s Annual Convention in Boca Raton. Government Lawyer Section Chair Diana Bock, right, and Claude Pepper Award Chair Morgan Rood, left, introduced Bradshaw to the section’s executive council at the convention.
Col. Bradshaw wins Bar’s Claude Pepper Outstanding Government Lawyer Award
Col. Joseph A. Bradshaw, Jr., the director of Legal Affairs for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, is the recipient of the 2013 Florida Bar Claude Pepper Outstanding Government Lawyer Award.
The award recognizes an “outstanding Florida lawyer who has made exemplary contributions” as a practicing government lawyer. It is named after Claude Pepper, a Florida attorney, U.S. senator, and congressman, who was an advocate on behalf of the people, and who represented the highest ideals of government service through 12 presidential administrations.
Bradshaw has been a deputy sheriff with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for more than 27 years. Prior to joining the sheriff’s office, Bradshaw was a road patrol officer and detective with a municipality in Broward County for four years, then left that position to attend law school at Pace University.
After graduating from law school in 1983, Bradshaw spent two and a half years as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York, spending the majority of his time prosecuting child abuse cases.
Bradshaw began his career with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office first as a road patrol deputy, then investigator, then as public information officer. He eventually became the first full-time in-house legal advisor for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Bradshaw’s department oversees and manages all of the litigation involving the sheriff’s office and provides advice on criminal law and procedure, employment and labor law, civil liability, forfeiture law, contracts, and departmental policy.
Bradshaw has been a member of the Florida Association of Police Attorneys for more than 20 years and served as its president for three terms. He is a member of the Legal Officer’s Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and a member of the National Sheriff’s Association.
