Legal Briefs (Tampa edition)

Legal Briefs (Tampa edition)

Contested race for Florida

Bar Board of Governors

Three Pinellas County lawyers - including a former Clearwater Bar Association president and a Treasure Island attorney known for his outspokenness - are vying for a 6th Circuit seat on the Florida Bar Board of Governors.

Andrew B. Sasso, Clearwater; Catherine Day Hult, Largo; and J.D. "John" Hadsall, Treasure Island, are running for the seat now held by Lou Kwall of Clearwater.

Sasso, admitted to the Florida Bar in 1984, is a former Clearwater bar president. He and law partner, Teresa Bodolay, who is also his sister, have a practice in Clearwater.

Hult, admitted to the Florida Bar in 2001, is a member of Joseph F. Pippen Jr. & Associates.

Hadsall, admitted in 1980, supports stricter regulation of Florida's lawyers. He unsuccessfully tried for the Treasure Island City Commission in 2002.

In a July 2003 letter to the Florida Bar Journal, Hadsall wrote: "And never have I thought the bar or the JQC (Judicial Qualifications Commission) was anything other than the politically enshrined protecting their brethren, while throwing the book at anyone who dares to question or to look cross-eyed at them and their labyrinth of knuckle-headed excuses for conduct unbecoming officers of the courts of this state."

In Tampa, attorney Timon V. Sullivan, an incumbent, was elected without opposition to Seat 1 in the 13th Judicial Circuit.

The 52-member Board of Governors adopts matters of policy concerning the activities of the bar. It meets bi-monthly.

The election for contested seats is in March. Bar members will cast their vote via ballots sent out in the mail in February. Ballots must be returned by midnight March 21.

Stetson narrows search

for dean to three

Interim Dean Darby Dickerson of the Stetson University College of Law is among three finalists under consideration for dean of the Gulfport school.

Also in the running are John T. Berry, executive director of the Michigan Bar, and Leroy Pernell, dean of Northern Illinois University College of Law.

"The selection process has been very difficult," John Cooper, co-chair of the search committee, said in a news release. The school's former dean, W. Gary Vause, died in May of cancer.

× Dickerson, a 1988 Vanderbilt Law School, is a former law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. She was in private practice for six years in Dallas prior to joining the Stetson faculty in 1995.

× Berry, a 1976 Stetson law school graduate, has served as an assistant state attorney in Florida. He is chair of the American Bar Association's Committee on Professionalism.

× Pernell, a 1974 Ohio State Law School graduate, has been dean of the Illinois law school since 1997. Prior to teaching, Pernell practiced with the Columbus Legal Aid and Defender Society.

Attorney General Crist

gives to Elder Law Center

Stetson University College of Law's Elder Law Center recently received $300,000 from Attorney General Charlie Crist to support the college's program that educates elderly residents on consumer fraud.

The payment was part of $700,000 that Stetson received as part of a $950,000 settlement between the Florida Attorney General's Office and a Delaware firm accused of deception.

"Fraud concerning the elderly continues to be a serious and growing problem in Florida," Rebecca Morgan, director of Stetson's Center for Excellence in Elder Law, said in a news release.

Stetson's new Tampa

campus set to open

The Tampa campus of Stetson University College of Law is expected to open Thursday, Jan. 15, a week later than expected because of construction delays. Tampa students attended classes at the Gulfport campus the first week of the spring semester.