Second Judicial Circuit Appointment

In the 2005 legislative session 55 judgeships at both the county and circuit level were approved by the legislature and signed into law by the governor. The Second Judicial Circuit, which includes Leon County, received one seat, which will begin November 1, 2005. The Second Judicial Circuit's Nominating Commission will accept applications for the seat ending July 13, 2005. There are nine people on the Second Circuit Nominating Commission, they are:

Stephanie L. Williams is the Associate Dean for Administration for the Florida State University College of Law. She is the chair of the Second Judicial Circuit’s Judicial Nominating Committee.
http://www.law.fsu.edu/faculty/profiles/profiles.php?Department=31&Employee=2
swilliam@law.fsu.edu

Pete Antonacci is a partner with Gray Robinson, he used to be the Deputy Attorney General.
http://www.grayharris.com/attorney.php?ACTION=view&ID=130
pva@gray-robinson.com

Kim W. Bertron is a lobbyist and used to work for the legislature.
http://www.bertronconsulting.com/profhist.htm
kwb@bertronconsulting.com

Anne Corcoran is an attorney.

Brian S. Duffy is a civil defense attorney and leads the civil litigation group at McConnaughhey, Duffy, Coonrod, Pope & Weaver. http://mcconnaughhay.com/index.cfm/ps/PageId=168/SubPageId=51/Duffy
bduffy@mcconnaughhay.com

Elaine Duggar is a certified Marital & Family lawyer practicing with Gardner, Wadsworth, Duggar, Bist & Wiener, P.A.
elaine@gwdbw.com

Warren H. Husband is an administrative lawyer with Metz, Hauser, Husband & Daughton.
http://www.metzlaw.com/profiles/1025782.html
whh@metzlaw.com

Jose B. Lorenzo is the Director, Program, Policy & Institutional Review, in the Office of Student Financial Assistance at the Florida Department of Education. He is also an attorney.
JOSE.LORENZO@FLDOE.ORG

Jessica E. Varn is a Commissioner on the Public Employees Relations Commission.
jessica.varn@perc.state.fl.us

These nine people will review the applications and interview candidates. Traditionally, only some applicants were interviewed, but the current governor likes the Commissions to interview all applicants and most do so. Then between three and six names are sent to the governor for him to select a candidate. The current governor prefers to have more choices rather than fewer, so most Commissions send six names.

Appointments are quite different from elections, requiring much less time to make application. It would be interesting to know if fundamentally different candidates are selected by appointment vs. election.