by Mike Sharkey
Staff writer
BOCA RATON — There was a healthy Jacksonville contingent at this year’s annual Florida Bar meeting here, no doubt because Jacksonville trial lawyer Hank Coxe will be installed today as the 58th president of The Florida Bar.
Coxe will become the ninth Jacksonville attorney to lead the Bar and the third from his firm.
Coxe was everywhere, going to meetings, shaking hands and smiling for pictures.
The first full day of the convention was filled with exhibitors showing their wares at a trade show all day, a luncheon featuring Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Barbara J. Pariente, committee work in the afternoon and university reunions in the evening.
At the convention’s General Assembly today, Coxe will be sworn in as president and Francisco R. Angones of Miami will take over as the 79,000-member Bar’s president-elect.
Tonight’s closing banquet features “Saturday Night Live” star Darrell Hammond, known for his impersonations of political figures such as former President Bill Clinton. Hammond is a graduate of the University of Florida.
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Perhaps the biggest news from Thursday involved the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Dean Robert Jerry said mediation attorney and professor Len Riskin of the University of Missouri will join the school’s faculty in January.
“He’s regarded as one of the top two or four mediators in the nation,” said Jerry, who was also at Missouri before moving to Gainesville. “Florida is a great destination and he was looking for a new venue. The faculty saw this as an opportunity and made it work.”
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• Jerry said the new $25 million addition with new classrooms and a law library is a hit with the faculty and students. Also, the school has 400 new law students coming in the fall which will bring the Levin enrollment to 1,180.
• Florida Coastal School of Law is on schedule to move into its new Southside campus. Dean Peter Goplerud said the move will start in about five weeks and the school will be ready for classes on Aug. 21. The school will also add 7-8 new faculty members this fall and 450 new students have enrolled. “By the end of the year, we will have the largest law school in the Southeast,” said Goplerud.
• Also from FCSL, the giveaway at their booth was trail mix — 700 boxes of trail mix.
• Florida State University Law School Dean Don Weidener said 98 percent of the school’s graduates are getting jobs right out of school and the Seminoles had the best Bar exam test scores based on the February exam. Weidner was also in the fundraising mood. He said the alumni have a 25 percent donation rate and he was looking for more. “I’ll be perfectly shameless about this: you can give a check to me,” he said.
• Investigator Sean Mulholland, whose office is in Downtown Jacksonville, had a booth set up and says his company is really taking off. Mulholland said he’s about to add 10 to his staff of 30 to handle his 400 clients and he’s adding a Fort Lauderdale office. Considering Atlanta, too. The general counsel for Penthouse Magazine left Mulholland a card. Seems the mag wants him to do background checks on prospective models.
• State Attorney Harry Shorstein is at the meetings.