John “Jake” Schickel of the Coker Myers firm has won the open seat for the Fourth Circuit on the Florida Bar’s board of governors.
Schickel defeated sole practitioner Arthur Hernandez in a vote of area Bar members and will take the seat being vacated by Hank Coxe of the Bedell firm, who has been named president-elect of the Bar. The other local seat is held by Grier Wells.
There were six other winners in contested races:
Second Circuit, Seat 2: Dominic M. Caparello, Tallahassee; Eighth Circuit, Seat 1: Carl B. Schwait, Gainesville; Thirteenth Circuit, Seat 2: William Kalish, Tampa; Fifteenth Circuit, Seat 2: Gregory W. Coleman, West Palm Beach; Fifteenth Circuit, Seat 4: Lisa S. Small, Palm Beach; and Sixteenth Circuit, Seat 1: Edwin A. Scales, Key West.
One incumbent was re-elected: Harold G. Melville, Ft. Pierce, Nineteenth Circuit’s Seat 1.
There’s one more vacancy on the board due to the death of Seventeenth Circuit board member Henry Latimer. Latimer was finishing out a two-year term on the board in Seat 3 and would have been sworn in for a new two-year term during the June 2005 annual meeting.
A special election is currently being held.
• Humor columnist Dave Barry and comedian Sinbad will be the entertainment at the Florida Bar’s annual meeting June 22-25 at the Orlando World Center Marriott.
• The Florida Bar and the Florida Medical Association have joined together to encourage Floridians to learn about the benefits of preparing Living Wills and to designate Health Care Surrogates. The lawyers and physicians groups are providing information and statutory forms on their Web sites at www.flabar.org or www.fmaonline.org.
• The Jacksonville chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates was awarded the Chapter of the Year award at the organization’s national board meeting in January.
• Attorney R. Gene Aldridge has joined the Jacksonville office of Fowler White Boggs Banker law firm as a shareholder in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group. Aldridge formerly worked for Ackerman Senterfitt.
• In an attempt to boost pro bono participation from Jacksonville attorneys, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc. will start recognizing a pro bono lawyer of the month. JALA Executive Director Michael Figgins estimates about 20 percent of the City’s attorneys work pro bono, a number he’d like to see grow. Many of the attorneys do their work with JALA. In the near future, the attorneys that do the most will have their pictures posted in JALA’s front window on Adams Street.