by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Start with 19 of North Florida’s top legal talents and whittle them down to one through exhaustive investigations and all-day interviews. The one left standing becomes Duval County’s newest judge.
It sounds like a summer replacement for NBC’s “The Apprentice” but the process described above is Florida’s method for appointing judges during non-election years. The cast of characters vying to fill the seat on Duval County’s bench would be at home in any legal drama: state attorneys, public defenders, magistrates, City attorneys, an assistant attorney general and a retired Naval officer. (Turn to page 3 to read each applicant’s biography.) The interviews begin Friday morning in Chief Judge Don Moran’s chambers in the Duval County Courthouse.
The difficult task of culling the best candidates from that talented pool falls to Mary Bland Love, a partner at Gobleman, Love, Gavin, Blazs and Mathis, and chair of the Fourth Judicial District’s Nominating Committee, and committee members Joel Toomey, Peter Sleiman, Angela Cory, Michael Stokes, Cleve Warren, Terrance James, David Wells and William Prichard.
The committee’s job is to separate the best candidates from the crowded field and advance those recommendations to Gov. Jeb Bush who makes the final decision. Love said she expects to send Bush three to six names to choose from sometime next week.
The names on the list depend on whose credentials stand out and who performs the best in the marathon interview sessions. Love plans to interview all 19 candidates Friday.
“The interviews follow up on the things the applications might reveal,” said Love. “Their legal ability, what their practice experience has been. Talking to them in person, we get a sense of their demeanor.”
To fit 19 interviews into a single day’s work, Love and the committee members have already invested a lot of time into researching the applications. The documents fill two cabinet-size boxes in Love’s office. Since the governor called the committee to action June 15, members have spent their free time investigating the applications, reading letters of recommendation and calling references. Love estimates she’s spent 40 hours already just preparing for the interviews.
The governor instructed the committee to make its recommendations by Aug. 12. The committee process is used to fill judicial vacancies in non-election years. Given the fluidity of the bench, it would be too costly to hold elections to fill vacancies in those years.
In addition to a candidate’s qualifications, the committee will be looking for a judicial demeanor during the interviews, said Love.
“A judge has to be efficient and has to be patient,” she said. “Sometimes that’s hard to blend.”
Love might need the same qualities from her committee members. She expects the governor to call the committee into service again once the current vacancy has been filled. The state legislature authorized two new county judges and a new circuit court judge to serve locally. Love thinks those positions might be filled in the next year.
The following is a thumbnail biographical sketch of all 19 judicial applicants.
Franklin Fred Akel
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Born: Dec. 1, 1960 in Jacksonville.
Admitted to the Florida Bar: Sept. 28, 1988.
Area of Practice: Magistrate; Support Enforcement Hearing Officer Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida Duval, Clay and Nassau Counties.
College: Received law degree in 1986 from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Ala.
Misc.: Says journalism background gives him superior writing skills. Studies in psychology and theology give him diversity of knowledge. Believes a judge has a duty to educate attorneys and litigants.
Lynn Lovejoy
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Born: Sept. 4, 1946 in Wheatland, Wyo. Lovejoy has lived in Florida for 20 years
Admitted to the Florida Bar: Dec. 27, 1984.
Area of Practice: Assistant Attorney General for the State of Florida. The board certified real estate attorney’s practice is in the Revenue Litigation section of the Florida Attorney General’s Office. Her main client is the Florida Department of Revenue.
College: Received law degree in 1983 from the University of Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law.
Misc.: Lovejoy worked as a registered nurse from 1980-84. She’s one of the few out-of-towners applying for the job. Were she to be appointed, she would have to move to Jacksonville prior to assuming the office.
Donald Matthews
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Born: June 1, 1946 in Jacksonville.
Admitted to the Florida Bar: March 5, 1971.
Area of Practice: General Master, Hearing Officer for the Fourth Judicial Circuit, State of Florida. Matthews‚ family practice covers all areas of law. Clients are typically middle class to poor blue-collar workers.
College: Received law degree in 1970 from University of Florida.
Misc.: Says dependability is one of his main assets, missing only one day of work in the past five years for illness and never arriving late. Matthews says he has no political ambitions and is prepared for the job.
Patricia Parker
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Born: May 7, 1967 in Miami Beach.
Admitted to the Florida Bar: Oct. 2, 1992.
Area of Practice: Partner, Parker and DuFresne, P.A. Practice consists of family litigation. Parker also conducts custody evaluations by appointment for family courts and handles dependency and parental rights cases at the trial and appellate levels.
College: Received law degree in 1992 from Stetson College of Law.
Misc.: Fluent in Spanish, Parker believes this gives her an edge in a Fourth Judicial Circuit, where the Hispanic population is growing.
Julie Taylor
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Born: March 23, 1971 at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. She has been a Florida resident for 30 years.
Admitted to the Florida Bar: Oct. 17, 1996.
Area of Practice: Partner, Stone, Taylor and Associates, P.A. Taylor describes her typical responsibilities as litigating adult and juvenile criminal cases in state and federal court.
College: Received law degree in 1996 from The Cumberland School of Law.