Adam Thoresen, division chief of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Consumer Advocacy and Litigation Unit, received the Consumer Protection Lawyer of the Year Award from The Florida Bar’s Consumer Protection Law Committee.
The award was presented June 22 at The Florida Bar’s annual meeting in Boca Raton.
“Adam continues to distinguish himself as a tenacious litigator dedicated to protecting tenants and consumers from exploitation,” Rich Dubois, executive director of the National Consumer Law Center, said in a news release.
“In so many areas of consumer law – from auto fraud to debt collection to foreclosures and evictions – Florida consumers are fortunate to have Jacksonville Area Legal Aid fighting for justice on their behalf,” Dubois said.
At JALA, Thoresen leads a group of four lawyers and two paralegals who help individual clients and work to facilitate change through individual and class action litigation and policy advocacy related to the mortgage foreclosure process, payday lending, title lending, fair credit reporting, tenants’ rights and other consumer issues.
Of the 16 lawyers in Florida who are recipients of the Consumer Protection Lawyer of the Year Award, four work at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid currently or did at the time they received the award.
That is more than any other law firm or government agency in Florida, the release said.
JALA President and CEO Jim Kowalski was the 2011 award recipient.
One of co-recipients in 2011 was April Charney, who at the time was a JALA staff attorney also known for her foreclosure prevention work.
Lynn Drysdale, one of the unit’s other attorneys and its former chief, received the award in 2014. In consumer protection practice for more than 30 years, Drysdale represents consumers in individual and class-action cases and has provided expert testimony to the Florida Legislature, two U.S. Senate committees, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve Board.
She teaches foreclosure defense litigation to consumer law attorneys nationwide and has taught consumer law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law for more than 10 years.
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid is a nonprofit law firm focused on providing economic, social and housing justice to low-income and at-risk people and families in Northeast Florida.