For his leadership in promoting professionalism and ethics to fellow members of the Bar, Joseph P. Milton will receive the highest honor given a lawyer by The Florida Bar Foundation.
The Foundation will present its Medal of Honor Award at its 34th annual reception and dinner June 24 at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in conjunction with The Florida Bar Annual Convention.
Milton, a senior partner with Milton, Leach, Whitman, D’Andrea & Milton in Jacksonville, has been a pioneer in promoting professionalism as one of the core values of the legal community, according to the Foundation.
His chairmanship of the Fourth Judicial Circuit Professionalism Committee led to the circuit and The Jacksonville Bar Association being jointly recognized not only as the outstanding professionalism program of The Florida Bar in 1999, but also as the outstanding professionalism program in the United States by the American Bar Association in 2001. He also worked on the Code of Professionalism as chair of the Bar’s Trial Lawyers Section and served on The Florida Bar Board of Governors when the Ideals and Goals of Professionalism were adopted.
Milton also has been an advocate for the legal needs of the less fortunate. He was recognized in 1981 with the Outstanding Service Award of the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid Clients Council for “Individual Contribution in Support of Legal Services for the Poor.”
His leadership roles have included serving as president or chair of the Judicial Nominating Commission of the Florida Supreme Court; The Jacksonville Bar Association; the Florida Council of Bar Association Presidents; the United States Federal Magistrate Selection Committee for the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division; the Jacksonville and Florida chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates; and the ABOTA National Foundation. In this last capacity, he greatly expanded the “Justice by the People” program to more than 30 million American schoolchildren.
He has been recognized previously with Lawyer of the Year awards from The Jacksonville Bar in 1999 and the Jacksonville Chapter of ABOTA in 2000.
Tickets for the annual dinner are $75 each, $70 for Foundation Fellows. Tickets are available at P.O. Box 1553, Orlando, 32802-1553.
— Courtesy Florida Bar News