Business Law Section Newsletter
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| The Florida Supreme Court Expands Anti-SLAPP Protections | | | |
By Michael Kolcun
Resolving a conflict among the DCAs, Florida’s Supreme Court broadens the protections of Florida’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute by allowing interlocutory review of nonfinal orders that deny motions brought under the anti-SLAPP statute. Read on.
| | New scholarship update - Caremark in Florida? | | | |
By Itai Fiegenbaum, St. Thomas University, Benjamin L. Crump College of Law
Director Oversight in Florida: Getting the Balance Right
Can directors of Florida-incorporated corporations be held liable for substandard oversight? If so, what standard should a Florida court apply in determining liability? Read on.
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Algorithmic Dead Hands: What is Dead May Never Die | Professor Catanzaro's newest article, published in the Fordham Journal of IP, Media, and Entertainment Law, argues that AI trustees could enable unprecedented posthumous control over property and heirs, threatening to create a techno-feudal system where the dead perpetually control the living through algorithmic proxies. |
Blog Recap
An Updated Cheat Sheet for Practitioners: The New, New Florida Summary Judgment Rule: 10 Things to Know
By Jocelyne A. Macelloni
On April 29, 2021, the Florida Supreme Court adopted a new summary judgment standard aligning it closely with its federal counterpart. On May 23, 2024, the Florida Supreme Court announced changes to Rule 1.510. The following overview provides the 10 key points every busy practitioner, and judge, should know about the summary judgment rule in Florida state courts.
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How to Write a Dispute Letter to Credit Bureau
By Daniel Cohen
What does a dispute letter entail and why do I need to know how to write a credit dispute letter? Great questions!
A dispute letter is a letter that consumers send to credit bureaus, such as Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion, to challenge information on a credit report that the consumer believes is incorrect, untimely, misleading, or incomplete. Disputes give credit bureaus an opportunity to review, edit, and update credit reports with the most up to date information.
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Recent Court Decision: Ortid, LLC v. Hawk Industries
In Ortid, LLC v. Hawk Industries, Germany, GMBH, Opposition No. 91267979 (TTAB August 30, 2024), a case that was filed in March 2021, Michael Chesal and Albert Alvarez successfully represented the Plaintiff in a trademark opposition before the United States Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The case involved a dispute over who had priority to the trademark HAWK for sporting goods. The Defendant’s case tanked when its own customer – who allegedly first purchased the Defendant’s HAWK branded goods – testified for the Plaintiff that the Defendant’s evidence of prior sales was a sham and that it had never purchased such goods. With that fatal testimony, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board readily entered judgment for the Plaintiff, sustaining the opposition. This will now open the door to an infringement claim.
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The Honorable A. Jay Cristol –
a Remarkable Life
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By Hon. Robert A Mark and Hon. Laurel M. Isicoff
Judge A. Jay Cristol passed away on October 21 2024 only three weeks after he celebrated his 95th birthday. There is an expression that when looking at the dates of birth and death – with the “life” represented by
a dash in between the years, one should consider “the dash”. Judge Cristol’s “dash” was remarkable.
Much has been written about Judge Cristol, including several well- deserved tributes written when Judge Cristol retired on January 13, 2023, after 37 years of dedicated service to our court. We will only touch on his accomplishments here, but we encourage you to learn more about this incredible human being. An extensive article about Judge Cristol was
published in the Courthouse Beacon – the quarterly publication of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida. You can access the
article here, under the tab for the December 2022 edition. Prior to his retirement, the authors spent several hours with Judge Cristol recording his oral history. You can find that oral history, including a transcript, at the National Bankruptcy Archives, housed at the University of Pennsylvania Biddle Law Library.
Judge Cristol spent his entire adult life, up until his retirement at 93, in public service – combining his love of flying, his passion for learning, and his practical and well-informed legal knowledge and skills. Judge Cristol first started flying when he was just 15 years old. In 1951, he joined the United States Navy as an aviation cadet, earning his Navy Wings of Gold in 1953.Judge Cristol was deployed on an anti-submarine squadron aboard an aircraft carrier during the Korean conflict.
| | | 15th Annual Intellectual Property Symposium | | | |
The 15th Annual Florida Bar Intellectual Property Symposium was held on April 10-11, 2025, in Aventura, Florida. This is the section’s largest event for IP practitioners and professionals, offering an opportunity for members across the State to engage with one another and learn of the latest IP developments. This year’s Symposium featured keynote speakers, Elizabeth Dougherty, the Northeast Regional Outreach Director of the USPTO, along with Mirriam Lord, the Associate Register of Copyrights for the United States Copyright Office. The 2026 Symposium will be held in Orlando, Florida.
View the full album here.
| | | 41st Annual Federal Securities Institute | | | |
The 41st Annual Federal Securities Institute and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Conference, was held on February 24-25, 2025 at the Grand Hyatt in Tampa, Florida. A premiere national event in the securities, M&A, and governance fields, the Institute brought together leading regulators, practitioners, and industry experts to discuss the latest developments in corporate and federal securities law and regulation. The Keynote Speech was delivered by Acting Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mark Uyeda, who used the Institute as a platform for outlining a new direction at the SEC.
View the full album here.
| | | Tampa Happy Hour for Good | | | |
Business Law Section members from the Tampa Bay area got together for a “happy hour for good” to volunteer at Feeding Tampa Bay’s new Causeway Center on November 19, 2024. The BLS group, which has organized previous local happy hours as the "Informal Tampa Social Hour Group," enjoyed an evening of working together at Feeding Tampa Bay’s Community Market. The Market provides neighbors with the opportunity to self-select a grocery cart full of donated fresh and frozen foods and household products. The BLS volunteers assisted Tampa-area families with selecting and packaging groceries and helped ensured the shelves were stocked for the evening’s shoppers. BLS volunteers included Kacy Donlon, Leslie Hudock, Jim Matulis, Danya Shakfeh, Dineen Wasylik, and Woody Pollack (who also serves on the Feeding Tampa Bay board of directors).
| | | Deedee Bitran, Vice Chair of Communications Committee |
| |  | Deedee Bitran, the Vice Chair of the Communications Committee of the Business Law Section of The Florida Bar, recently joined StandWithUs as Senior Counsel and Director of Pro Bono while concurrently serving as Of Counsel at Shutts and Bowen LLP. StandWithUs, an international educational nonprofit, focuses its mission on supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism; its legal team empowers students and community members through a legal response to antisemitism and anti-Israel activity. Anyone seeking StandWithUs’ help can file an incident report here. When intake comes in, StandWithUs’ legal team analyzes antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents, determines the appropriate response, and provides the legal tools and resources to fight back against antisemitism. At StandWithUs, Deedee’s expertise is helping guide employees who are being discriminated against because they are Jewish and/or Israeli. She facilitates partnerships between StandWithUs and law firms to file lawsuits fighting antisemitism in the workplace, works with pro bono attorneys on drafting amicus briefs, and guides callers on navigating their legal remedies. She also helps grow and works closely with the StandWithUs pro bono attorney network by partnering with lawyers around the United States on various legal projects. Her work at StandWithUs is exciting, challenging, and meaningful and she encourages any attorneys who want to get involved with StandWithUs' pro bono projects to email her directly.
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