Legal Briefs (Tampa)

Legal Briefs (Tampa)

St. Petersburg Lawyer Keeps

Nearly $1 Million, Regains License

Nearly 30 months after the Florida Supreme Court suspended St. Petersburg lawyer Philip Winston Dann, the justices agreed to reinstate his license.

The court unanimously accepted a referee's report that Dann be readmitted to the Florida Bar, according to an Oct. 18 court order. No one publicly disagreed with the recommendation by Hillsborough Chief Judge Manuel Menendez, the referee, that Dann be reinstated.

Dann, 50, is a lawyer in good standing with the bar - about eight years to the month after his problems started.

On June 22, 1997, Walter Vossiek, 93, died, leaving an estate, valued at $1.7 million in 2001, to Dann, his counsel. The inheritance seemed like a sure thing for Dann: Vossiek had no known relatives.

But Dann's former secretary, Suzanne Howard Goldstone, told bar investigators in October 1997 that Vossiek, a retired Ford Motor Co. engineer, had dementia when he made Dann his heir.

A medical form showed that Vossiek suffered from dementia when he was admitted to The Laurels Rehabilitation Center in August 1992, five years prior to his death, according to court records. Goldstone painted a picture of a miser who scrimped and saved.

In turn, Dann contended Goldstone was upset she hadn't inherited the money. The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office investigated the allegations against Dann. Prosecutors Robert Lewis and Scott Hopkins later said under oath that Goldstone's testimony wasn't credible.

It would take nearly five years for the Florida Bar investigation to wind its way through the system. In 2002, the justices cited numerous ethical breaches on Dann's part and suspended him for 91 days. He was found guilty of violating five rules under the Florida Bar Rules of Conduct, including "conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation."

A lawyer for Vossiek's 18 relatives said Dann had given about $880,000 to Vossiek's cousins and paid $218,000 to their attorneys. The relatives agreed to write the bar and state attorney on Dann's behalf. Even with the settlement, Dann still reaped as much as $1 million from Vossiek's estate, according to testimony at the Feb. 16 hearing. Dann didn't return telephone calls for comment.

- Janet Leiser

Tampa firm shifting

from nursing homes?

Rumors continue to swirl that Tampa's Wilkes & McHugh is cutting the number of Florida litigators that handle nursing home abuse lawsuits, while it expands in other states.

A firm spokesman refused to comment on staffing changes, but Steve Vancore confirmed the number of nursing home lawsuits in Florida have dropped in recent years, thanks to 2001 legislation that helped improve the quality of care in the state's nursing homes.

Florida is now one of the top-ranked states for nursing home care when it used to be one of the worst, Vancore says.

Wilkes & McHugh, which started in Tampa about 20 years ago, has 60 lawyers in eight states.

Last year, it was named one of the top plaintiff firms in the country by the National Law Journal.

New bar presidents

assume leadership roles

For legal associations, summer signals the passing of leadership from one elected president to another. And this summer is especially important for the Hillsborough County Bar Association as it installs its first African-American president, Lansing Scriven, at 5:30 p.m. June 28 at The Tampa Club, 101 E. Kennedy Blvd., 41st Floor.

Other new HCBA officers are Donald W. Stanley, president-elect; J. Gary Walker, treasurer; and directors Pedro F. Bajo Jr., Caroline K. Black, Thomas R. Bopp, Susan Etheridge, Amy S. Farrior, Susan Johnson-Velez, Robert J. Scanlan, Jennie G. Tarr, S. Gordon Hill and Kenneth G. Turkel.

The St. Petersburg Bar Association's officers were installed earlier in June. They are Seymour Gordon, president; Lee Rightmyer, vice president; Camille Iurillo, secretary; and committee members Patrice Pucci, Tom Ramsberger and Jim Thaler. Hunter Carroll is the Young Lawyers' Section representative.

Last month, the Clearwater Bar Association installed Susan Demers, its first non-practicing attorney, as president.

Demers is in charge of the paralegal program at St. Petersburg College and her husband, David Demers, is the chief judge for the Pinellas-Pasco Judicial Circuit.

Other new CBA officers are Jewel White Cole, president-elect; Kimberly Campbell, secretary; Peter Rivellini, treasurer; and board directors Jeffrey Albinson, Thomas Donnelly, L. Keith Meyer and Kinnear Smith. President of the Young Lawyers Division is Peter Sartes and the group's president-elect is Stephanie Bolton. Sole practitioner Donna Rose was elected editor of Res Ipsa Loquitur.

North Florida lawyer

chosen to lead bar

It seems the grumblings of lawyers practicing law in the middle part of Florida continue to fall on deaf ears: Another North Florida lawyer, Alan B. Bookman of Pensacola, was to be sworn in June 24 as president of the 76,000-member group. He replaces Kelly Overstreet Johnson of Tallahassee.

Clearwater attorney Lou Kwall, a former member of the Florida Bar Board of Governors, has suggested the bar leadership be rotated each year so that a different region of the state is represented. It would help lessen the disconnect that he says some lawyers feel toward the group that governs them. But no such luck.

President-elect is Henry M. Coxe III of Jacksonville. And before Johnson became president last year, five South Florida lawyers held the position, dating back to 1997.

In 1996, Polk County lawyer John W. Frost II of Bartow was president. And in the early 1990s, two Tampa Bay area attorneys, William F. Blews and Benjamin H. Hill III, held the job.

But in the past 30 years, only five Tampa Bay area lawyers were president of the group that oversees and licenses the state's lawyers.

In their defense, bar officials contend the president is elected, not appointed. What are they to do?

If it's any consolation to Tampa Bay area lawyers, only one Orlando area lawyer has held the job in three decades.

Former Wilkes & McHugh

litigator opens law practice

Beverly Thomson Shaw, a longtime Wilkes & McHugh senior litigator who says she recovered $500 million for that firm over two years, recently opened an elder law practice in St. Petersburg.

Shaw, a Stetson University College of Law graduate, plans to focus on wills, trusts, estates, advance directives, probate, guardianship, Medicaid, asset protection and assisted living planning.

She shares an office at 5001 9th Ave., N., with two other graduates from Stetson - Bob Jockers and Carole Banks.

In a two-year period at Tampa's Wilkes & McHugh, Shaw helped the firm recruit more than 600 clients that resulted in $500 million in settlements and trial verdicts, according to a written statement.

Wilkes McHugh, pioneers in nursing home litigation, has been expanding in other states, including Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Arizonia, California and Pennsylvania.

Shaw isn't complaining. "It's the best thing that could have happened to me," Shaw says. "I love being my own boss."

Creditors select Akerman Senterfitt as co-counsel

The unsecured creditors committee in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization of Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. recently chose Akerman Senterfitt to serve as co-counsel to New York-based Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCoy LLP. Jacksonville-based Akerman Senterfitt shareholder John B. Macdonald will lead the firm as committee co-counsel.

GrayRobinson attorney

elected Kiwanis director

GrayRobinson litigator Colleen M. Fitzgerald was elected to a three-year term as a director of the Tampa Kiwanis Foundation Inc. Fitzgerald, who's completing a term as a director of the Kiwanis Club, specializes in securities and commercial litigation.

Hill, Ward & Henderson

hires new tax attorney

P. Prestin Weidner, a graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School, joined Hill, Ward & Henderson PA as an associate in the corporate and tax department. In addition to an accounting degree from Florida State University and a law degree from Vanderbilt, Weidner has an LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown University.

Carlton Fields attorney

becomes certified in tax law

Cristin A. Conley has been board certified by the Florida Bar in tax law. Conley practices in the areas of state and federal tax planning, including federal taxation of foreign entities and U.S. foreign investments, tax controversies and laws governing profit and nonprofit businesses. She's a 1994 graduate of Duke University, and she has a J.D. and LL.M from the University of Florida College of Law.

In other firm news, Nathaniel L. Doliner, chair of the firm's corporate practice group, was a panelist on mergers and acquisitions at the recent American Corporate Counsel annual meeting in Chicago. Plus, Doliner participated in a mock negotiation of a stock purchase agreement at Stanford Law School.

Florida Bar honors

50-year lawyers

More than 100 attorneys from the Sunshine State were to be honored for a half-century of dedication to the service of law at a June 24 luncheon during the Florida Bar's annual convention in Orlando.

The bar recognized attorneys in good standing that attained their 50th anniversary as a member of the Florida Bar in 2005.

Honored were Stewart C. Eggert, David H. Hanlon, Lewis Hamilton Hill III, Broaddus Livingston and George O. Wilson III, all of Tampa; Guy L. Kennedy Jr., Clearwater; Alan R. Lupka, Land-O-Lakes; Thomas E. Bissonnette, Odessa; Albert C. Werly, Seminole; and Joseph H. Chumbley, Mark R. McGarry Jr. and Guy N. Perenich, all of St. Petersburg.