Rep. Traci Koster honored with Florida Bar President’s Legislative Award
Rep. Traci Koster and immediate past Bar President Scott Westheimer
Outgoing President Scott Westheimer presented Republican Rep. Traci Koster, a Tampa attorney, with The Florida Bar President’s Legislative Award at the 2024 Annual Convention in Orlando.
Westheimer noted that while many Bar members have served in the Legislature, it’s uncommon to find a Florida lawyer who consistently acknowledges her Bar membership as foundational to her legislative service.
“What is perhaps not as well known, but certainly important to our Bar, is that Rep. Koster makes it plainly known to her legislative colleagues that she is a proud member of The Florida Bar,” Westheimer said. “That she knows the services we provide to our state. That she knows our structure and our discipline process. That she respects our role as officers of the court, and as an arm of the judicial branch. Bottom line, Rep. Koster is our advocate.”
Westheimer said Koster has worked on many leadership priorities in her career in the House and notably this past session Rep. Koster partnered with retired judge, now Rep. Patt Maney, R-Shalimar, and Sen. Erin Grall, R-Ft. Pierce, to pass the most comprehensive re-write of the Baker and Marchman acts in a generation.
The 1970s era Baker and Marchman acts govern the involuntary commitment of people with mental health and substance use disorders, respectively. The recently signed measure gives law enforcement more discretion when it comes to detaining a suspect for an involuntary examination and streamlines intake procedures, enhances the use of remote proceedings, lifts a cap on crisis stabilization beds, and makes it easier for minors to obtain voluntary treatment.
Other bills Koster worked on this year included an “Equitable Distribution of Marital Assets” measure, supported by the Family Law Section, that makes divorce proceedings more uniform and a bill requiring court clerks to provide a digital, or durable, wallet-sized “Hope Card” to people who receive a protective court order to make it easier for domestic violence and other victims to prove to law enforcement that they are protected by a court order.
Koster, who recently completed her second term in the Legislature, practices family and marital law alongside her legislative duties.
