Appellate Practice Section

Each year, the Appellate Practice Section presents two prestigious awards - the Adkins Award and the Pro Bono Award - to members of the section who represent a commitment to appellate practice. The section created the Adkins Award in honor of Florida Supreme Court Justice James Adkins, who passed away in 1994. Justice Adkins served on the Supreme Court for eighteen years in the 1970s and 1980s, and he was the Chief Justice during the mid-1970s. The Section annually presents this award to a member of The Florida Bar who has significantly contributed to the field of appellate practice in Florida.

This year’s winners were Thomas D. Hall, who received the Adkins Award, and John R. Hamilton, recipient of the Pro Bono Award. The Section presented the awards at the Section’s Annual Dessert Reception, which was co-hosted with the Cuban American Bar Association.

Tom Hall exemplifies a commitment to enhancing appellate practice for lawyers throughout the State. Tom has served for nearly twenty years at three of Florida’s appellate courts. He is currently the Clerk of the Court at the Florida Supreme Court, a position to which he wasappointed in May of 2000. Prior to appointment as Clerk, Tom was the Chief Staff Attorney at the First District Court of Appeal for ten years. Before that, he was in private practice for eight years in Miami, Florida, handling complex commercial litigation at the trial and appellate levels. Immediately after graduating from the University of Miami School of Law, Tom was a law clerk to the Honorable Daniel S. Pearson at the Third District Court of Appeal. He has taught at two Florida law schools and other legal institutions.

From 1985 to 2000, Tom served on the Florida Appellate Rules Committee, which advises the Florida Supreme Court on proposed amendments to Florida’s Rules of Appellate Procedure. He now serves as the Florida Supreme Court’s unofficial liaison to that committee. In fact, Tom has served on virtually every Florida Supreme Court committee in existence over the past seventeen years that involved Florida’s appellate courts. In addition, he has been a member of the District Court of Appeal Performance and Accountability Commission since its inception.

Tom is very active in the Appellate Practice Section of The Florida Bar. He has served in every office of the section. He is the immediate past chair of the section and a member of its Executive Executive Council. Throughout his many years of active involvement in the appellate section, Tom has made many important contributions to appellate practice in our state. He suggested the creation of a pro se appellate handbook to assist self-represented litigants and the appellate courts in dealing with the ever increasing number of pro se litigants at the appellate level. Tom remains heavily involved in the project as The Florida Bar Liaison to the Florida Supreme Court and the District Courts of Appeal and to The Florida Bar Foundation.

Tom also initiated two important appellate section events. He suggested the creation of an annual appellate workshop to be run in conjunction with a Florida law school and, together with Judge Peter Webster, designed the entire program. He ran the first four or five programs and offered guidance for subsequent workshops. In 2006, Tom Hall worked with Judge Charles Kahn, Judge Martha Warner, Judge Peter Webster, and other section members to create the first Annual Appellate Justice Conference, an event hosted by the Conference of District Court of Appeal Judges and the Appellate Practice Section of The Florida Bar, which encourages dialogue between appellate advocates and judicial officers regarding appellate justice in Florida.

John R. Hamilton - Pro Bono Award

The Pro Bono Award recognizes appellate practitioners who provide representation to people, groups, and causes that otherwise could not afford such representation. John Hamilton is a well-deserved recipient of the award. John is a partner in the Orlando office of Foley & Lardner LLP, where his practice focuses on appellate practice and civil litigation. Tom has been certified by The Florida Bar in appellate practice since 1996 and has been recognized as one of Florida’s Legal Elite by Florida Trend™ magazine in 2005, 2006, and 2007. In addition, he was named a 2006 and 2007 Florida “Super Lawyer” by Law & Politics Media, Inc.

John has devoted an enormous amount of his energy and talents to advocate for indigent clients in the appellate arena. He has represented numerous clients pro bono in dozens of appellate matters, including arguments before the Florida Supreme Court. Recently, John filed, argued, and won a Writ of Mandamus compelling theSeminole County Clerk to administer justice fairly to indigent clients. Additionally, John has donated his time on innumerable occasions to the staff attorneys of the Legal Aid Society of the Orlando County Bar, providing them with guidance or procedural assistance in their complex legal aid cases that were either in an appellate setting or required advice for preserving error. John has also taken time from his private practice to serve on the Society’s board of directors from 1996-2005, leaving the board for a two-year hiatus only because of a nine-year limit to the consecutive service of any board member. The Society recently bestowed upon John its prestigious Jake Stone Award, which is given to only one attorney each year for their lifetime efforts to assist the indigent and poor who can nototherwise obtain representation for their true and just causes.

The Appellate Practice Section congratulates and thanks you both for contributing so much to the field of appellate practice in our state.

- Written by Gwendolyn Powell Braswell, a board certified appellate attorney residing in Sarasota, Florida. She is an active participant in the legal community. Ms. Braswell is a member of the Board of Directors of the Sarasota County Bar Association, the Appellate Court Rules Committee of The Florida Bar, and the Executive Council of the Appellate Practice Section of The Florida Bar. Ms. Braswell currently chairs the Appellate Practice Section of the Sarasota County Bar Association. She is a master of the Judge John M. Scheb American Inn of Court. She is also licensed to practice law in Georgia and the District of Columbia.

Past Recipients


2006	Raymond "Tom" Elligett, Jr. Adkins Award	Allen I. Mishael Pro Bono Award

2005	Sylvia Walbolt Adkins Award	John Mills Pro Bono Award

2004	Arthur J. England Adkins Award	Stephen Hanion Pro Bono Award	Susan Kelsey Pro Bono Award