YLD plans free ‘Navigating the Shift: Unpacking Florida’s Tort Reform for Young Lawyers’ program
Brandon Sapp
Two months after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the most sweeping civil litigation reforms in decades, the Young Lawyers Division is sponsoring a free CLE, “Navigating the Shift: Unpacking Florida’s Tort Reform for Young Lawyers.”
“The goal is to go beyond the surface layer of just providing some information about tort reform and to provide our listeners with a mini crash course on how to practice in the new world of tort litigation,” said Orlando attorney and chief organizer Brandon Sapp, a YLD board member.
The June 13 webinar will be streamed via Zoom from noon to 1 p.m.
The legislation, backed by the insurance industry and business groups, went into effect when DeSantis signed HB 837 on March 24. The Florida Justice Association, consumer groups, and others were strongly opposed.
Among other things, the reforms reduced the statute of limitations for negligence claims from four years to two years, switched Florida from a “pure” to a “modified” comparative negligence standard, and allowed juries to consider the criminal tortfeasor when apportioning blame in certain negligent security claims.
The seminar will focus on a handful of major changes, including the statute of limitations, bad faith, boarding medical bills, and fault, Sapp said.
Moderators and panelists will describe the new civil landscape and “explain what it means in everyday terms of being an attorney as well as give real life insight and examples on how you have to work a case differently based on the changes in the law,” Sapp said.
YLD board members Charise A. Morgan-Joseph and G.C. Murray will serve as moderators.
Morgan-Joseph, staff counsel with Zurich Insurance Company in South Florida, is a former lead civil trial counsel and administrative law judge who serves on the Civil Procedure Rules Committee.
Murray, an Out of State YLD board representative, is CEO and managing attorney of Association GC in Washington, D.C. A nationally recognized expert in association management, he also serves as special counsel to a multi-million-dollar trade association.
The expert panel will consist of two defense and two plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Offering the defense perspective will be Miami attorney and Rumberger Kirk partner Melissa Softness, and Frank Pierce IV, a senior partner in the Orlando office of Luks, Santaniello who also serves as president of the Florida Defense Lawyers Association.
Offering the plaintiff’s perspective will be Tallahassee personal injury attorney Amber Hall of Amber Hall Law, and Miami attorney Todd Michaels, a partner with the Haggard Law Firm.
YLD President Iris Elijah announced the seminar at a Board of Governors meeting earlier this month in Naples.
“We’ve got to make sure that we are equipping our members on the changes in the law,” Elijah said. “At the end of the day, we’re here to represent our clients.”
