Barry Newman
From left, City General Counsel Jason Gabriel with his predecessors John Delaney, Fred Franklin, Charles Arnold, Rick Mullaney and Cindy Laquidara.
Amy Turci
Kayla Haines
Jennifer Shoaf Richardson
City General Counsel Jason Gabriel recently hosted lunch at The River Club for five former city government chief attorneys.
Joining Gabriel were retired Circuit Judge Charles Arnold; John Delaney, president of the University of North Florida; Fred Franklin, managing director at Rogers Towers; Cindy Laquidara, a partner at Akerman; and Rick Mullaney, director of the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute.
Gabriel said he previously had lunch with several of the former GCs individually, “but this was the first time we sat down together as a group to break bread.”
He also said the former general counsels “genuinely care about the status of the office” and each offers “a slightly different approach” when discussing the responsibilities of the general counsel in consolidated government.
“It was fun to hear stories of the past, even in their individual careers after being general counsel. This is an extraordinary group of people,” Gabriel said.
Jackson Lewis attorney Jennifer Shoaf Richardson, 2017-18 president of the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association, has been elected president of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers.
A graduate of the University of Florida and Florida Coastal School of Law, she will be the first president of the statewide organization from Jacksonville in more than 20 years.
FordHarrison has named Amy Turci office managing partner of the labor and employment law firm’s Jacksonville office. She joined the firm in 2016 and was named partner in February.
Turci is a board member of the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. Florida First Coast Chapter and serves as chair of the organization’s Women’s Council.
Jimerson & Cobb associate Kayla Haines was elected president of the Florida Coastal School of Law Alumni Association Jacksonville Chapter.
In addition, the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association appointed her to its Special Events Committee. Haines will co-chair the committee and be responsible for planning the organization’s involvement in events, including The Jacksonville Bar Association Young Lawyers Section’s Annual Chili Cookoff.
Barry Newman, a partner at the Spohrer Dodd law firm, was a featured speaker at the American Association for Justice national attorney conference in Boston.
An aviation law specialist and one of only 37 board-certified aviation lawyers in the U.S., he was asked to talk about his experience trying cases overseas. Newman appeared before the High Court of Kenya in Nairobi in 2016 and again this year on behalf of two United Kingdom residents who were injured in the crash of a sightseeing helicopter while visiting Kenya in 2010.
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