Florida Bar News Article on the Regional Counsel offices

I'm sorry I missed this until today. Here is the link to the article. It contains quotes from four of the five new Regional Counsels.

If any of it is actually news, I suppose it would be this:

In interviews with the News, the new counsels said they were working hard to set up their offices, but agreed that wouldn’t happen by October 1, the date specified in state law. They noted that law called for the regional counsel to be named on July 1, while that didn’t actually happen until August 21, which left them the impossible task of setting up offices in about six weeks.

Although they can’t meet the October 1 deadline, the regional counsels said they hope to be operating shortly after that date. In the meantime, they’re working as fast as possible.

We get some numbers as well:

Lewis, for the First DCA, must provide conflict counsel for public defender criminal cases and dependency counsel in civil cases over a 32-county area covering six circuits. He will start with a $7.5 million budget and 108 positions. At the moment, he foresees the need to open at least one branch office in each circuit.

Fourth DCA conflict counsel Massa estimates his caseload will be between 7,000 and 10,000 cases annually, counting dependency and criminal conflict cases. He expects to have about 40 attorneys and a support staff of 23, with a budget of around $5.9 million. He’s looking at having offices in Broward and Palm Beach counties, and likely one in Stuart or Ft. Pierce to handle cases from the 19th Circuit.

Deen will be covering four circuits as the Fifth DCA regional conflict counsel. He will have 67 employees and expects 40 to 45 will be attorneys. His budget is around $5 million, and he was still studying projected caseload numbers.

George, the Third DCA regional conflict counsel, laughingly said the first part of his job was wading through about 50 pounds of paperwork. He expects to have a budget of around $4 million and a staff of 40 to 45 people, with more than half being attorneys. He anticipates having around 5,000 criminal cases annually, plus another 1,000 dependency cases.

The article also listed contact information for 4 of the 5 RCs for those interested in employment:

Here’s a list of the people each regional conflict counsel said he is now looking for. Contact information is provided if you are interested in applying:
• Jeffrey Lewis, who is running the conflict office that covers the geographical area of the First District Court of Appeal, said he is looking for an office administrator, who in turn will assist in setting up the office and hiring other employees. His priority is for someone who is familiar with how state attorney or public defender offices operate, and with the state’s purchasing procedures. Lewis can be reached at (850) 728-7130 or via e-mail at jeffreylewis_rc1.jac.state.fl.us

• Joseph George, of the Third DCA regional office, is looking for an office administrator and/or human resources director to help him with the hiring of other employees and in setting up his offices. He can be reached at (305) 670-6706.

• Philip Massa, who is running the Fourth DCA regional office, is ready to take applications from anyone interested in working for his office as an attorney or in a support staff position. Applications can be sent to Philip J. Massa, Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel, Fourth Region, P.O. Box 1654, Tallahassee 32302.

• Jeffrey Deen, of the Fifth DCA regional office, is looking for support staff as well as dependency and criminal attorneys. He particularly hopes to find attorneys from each area of his region to handle the cases from that area. Deen can be contacted at 1759 W. Broadway St., Suite 3, Oviedo 32765, or by fax at (407) 971-6777.

(Second DCA regional counsel Jackson Flyte could not be reached in time for this article.)

Not to be Johnny-on-the-spot or anything, but Mr. Flyte COULD be reached by this blog three weeks ago and gives us this (perhaps temporary) contact information:

Jackson S. Flyte
Regional Counsel, Second District.
P.O. Box 1598
Bartow, FL 33831

We will need a State of Florida employment application and resume.


ED: By the way, why does one of the RCs have a JAC email address and the others do not? I think I'll try to follow the format of name_rc#@jac.state.fl.us and see what happens