• Attorney Melissa Cole has joined the law firm of A. Hamilton Cooke and Joseph Clay Meux Jr. as an associate. Also, the firm — which specializes in wills, trusts, estates, probate and trust administration, elder law, guardianship, real estate and corporate law — has moved. They are now at 501 Riverside Avenue.
• Also moving: attorney John Kalil has moved his office to 6817 Southpoint Parkway.
• Those looking for an alternative holiday tradition or who don’t care about being on anybody’s “naughty list” should be entertained by the “Santaland Diaries” being performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Dec. 19-21. The one-act play by famed humorist David Sedaris, adapted for the stage by Joe Montello, features Ian Mairs as a disgruntled elf at a New York City Macy’s department store. Show times are at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 for non-members and $12 for members. Cafe Nola dinner and theatre packages are $45 for non-members and $40 for members. Reserve tickets at www.mocajacksonville.org or by calling 366-6911.
• Maria Aguila and Tri Vu have been named to the Asian Council of Leaders, a group within the Mayor’s Asian Advisory Board. Vu, an architect, is the chair while Aguila, an attorney, is the vice chair.
• Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Christa Figgins was wandering the halls of the Haskell Building Tuesday night looking for the Jacksonville Association Defense Council’s holiday party. Figgins was supposed to be on hand to receive a $3,000 donation the JADC made to JALA. However, Figgins — who was racing back to town after being at a Florida Bar meeting in Orlando — had the wrong date. The party was Monday, but JALA still got the donation.
“The Patent Laws began in England in 1624; and, in this country, with the adoption of our constitution. Before then, any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.”
– Abraham Lincoln