by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
As a named partner at the law offices of Milton, Leach, Whitman, D’Andrea, Charek and Milton, P.A., Joseph Milton is already a busy man.
As the new president of the American Board of Trial Advocates Foundation, Milton is about to become quite a bit busier.
On Jan. 1, Milton will begin his two-year term leading the ABOTA Foundation but this isn’t his first ranking position with the national organization. He is the immediate past-treasurer of the organization and has been involved with ABOTA for several years. But Milton said serving as president of the foundation will be a top honor.
“I am ready for it,” he said. “I have all of my committees appointed and I have lit some fires under all of the chairmen and this is something I strongly believe in. I think anything we can do to educate the public and anything we can do to make our lawyers better is a worthwhile goal.
“The immediate past president (Craig Lewis) did a great job. I am looking forward to the next two years and hopefully will be able to take it to an even higher level.”
According to Milton, the ABOTA Foundation was formed 13 years ago to serve as a vehicle for people — primarily ABOTA members — to donate funds to be used for educating the public, school children and the profession on constitutional principles, particularly the Seventh Amendment’s right to trial by jury.
“As the founding fathers said, the thing that you need to have absolute justice is a jury system where your peers sit and hear the evidence and make a determination as opposed to one being made by judges,” said Milton.
One of the foundation’s main goals, and something Milton said he believes wholeheartedly in, is constitutional education for school children. Milton said the ABOTA Foundation’s Youth Education Program distributes an interactive hands-on CD-ROM program to middle schools across the United States that teaches different concepts of the American jury system. So far, he said the program has reached more than 25,000 schools in the U.S.
The Foundation also runs the Masters in Trial series, a continuing legal education program for lawyers and law students that is conducted around the country by ABOTA members. Milton said the MIT courses are like abbreviated mock trials using real situations. The courses also allow participants to watch and listen in on the jury’s deliberation, something Milton said is a unique learning experience for any trail attorney.
“They are like three-day trials in four hours,” he said. “It gives (participants) a chance to see the various styles of excellent trial lawyers. Then they get to watch the real jury deliberate it which is part of the learning process that most lawyers don’t get to ever see.”
Above all, Milton said the ABOTA Foundation works hard to promote and increase professionalism, integrity and “all of the qualities you would hope most lawyers would have.”