Thomas Benton Smith (judge)
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Thomas Benton Smith (judge)
Thomas Benton Smith (November 12, 1952 - September 7, 2023) was an American judge serving for 20 years in the federal and state courts of Florida. He inspired the creation of Florida's first specialized business court, and was considered a leader on improving the quality and efficiency of business litigation. Judicial service State court judge In December 2001, Florida Governor Jeb Bush appointed Smith as a judge of Florida's Ninth Judicial Circuit Court, covering Orange and Osceola Counties. He was later successfully elected as a circuit court judge. He served as a circuit court judge from early 2002 until 2011, when he became a Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court of the Middle District of Florida. He was replaced on the Ninth Circuit by John Jordan. Smith first served in the court's criminal division and then its domestic division. During his early time on the court, in 2003, Smith pursued the concept with Chief Judge Belvin Perry of establishing a spec ...
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Federal Judiciary Of The United States
The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primarily of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts. It also includes a variety of other lesser federal tribunals. Article III of the Constitution requires the establishment of a Supreme Court and permits the Congress to create other federal courts and place limitations on their jurisdiction. Article III states that federal judges are appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate to serve until they resign, are impeached and convicted, or die. Courts All federal courts can be readily identified by the words "United States" (abbreviated to "U.S.") in their official names; no state court may include this designation as part of its name. The federal courts are generally divided between ...
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Electronic Discovery
Electronic discovery (also ediscovery or e-discovery) refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format (often referred to as electronically stored information or ESI). Electronic discovery is subject to rules of civil procedure and agreed-upon processes, often involving review for privilege and relevance before data are turned over to the requesting party. Electronic information is considered different from paper information because of its intangible form, volume, transience and persistence. Electronic information is usually accompanied by metadata that is not found in paper documents and that can play an important part as evidence (e.g. the date and time a document was written could be useful in a copyright case). The preservation of metadata from electronic documents creates special challenges to prevent spoliation. In the United States, at t ...
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1952 Births
Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Union of South Africa, South Africa, Dominion of Pakistan, Pakistan and Dominion of Ceylon, Ceylon. The princess, who is on a visit to Kenya when she hears of the death of her father, King George VI, aged 56, takes the regnal name Elizabeth II. ** In the United States, a Artificial heart, mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient. *February 7 – New York City announces its first crosswalk devices to be installed. * February 14–February 25, 25 – The 1952 Winter Olympics, Winter Olympics are held in Oslo, Norway. * February 15 – The State Funeral of King Ge ...
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2023 Deaths
This is a list of lists of deaths of notable people, organized by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked below. 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 Earlier years ''Deaths in years earlier than this can usually be found in the main articles of the years.'' See also * Lists of deaths by day * Deaths by year (category) {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ...
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University Of Florida Levin College Of Law
The University of Florida Levin College of Law (UF Law) is the law school of the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest operating public law school in Florida and second oldest overall in the state. For every entering class in its three-year J.D. program, the law school has approximately 200 students. The first-year class is broken into three sections of approximately 50-70 students who take most first-year classes together. According to the college's official 2023 ABA-required disclosures, only 4.1% of Class of 2023 graduates were "underemployed," with 93.6% of graduates obtaining employment in either bar-passage-required or JD-advantage employment within 9 months of graduation, the highest rate of any Florida law school. 88.24% obtained bar-passage-required employment (i.e., as attorneys) within 9 months of graduation. This ranked Levin second to Florida State for Florida job placement of recent law graduates in bar-passage-requ ...
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Juris Doctor
A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, and Hong Kong, offer both the postgraduate JD degree as well as the undergraduate Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Civil Law, or other qualifying law degree. Originating in the United States in 1902, the degree generally requires three years of full-time study to complete and is conferred upon students who have successfully completed coursework and practical training in legal studies. The JD curriculum typically includes fundamental legal subjects such as constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal law, contracts, property, and torts, along with opportunities for specialization in areas like international law, corporate law, or public policy. Upon receiving a JD, graduates must pass a bar examinatio ...
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University Of South Florida
The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, Florida, Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF is home to 14 colleges, offering more than 240 undergraduate, graduate, specialist, and doctoral-level degree programs. USF is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. USF is a member of the Association of American Universities, Association of American Universities (AAU) and is designated by the Florida Board of Governors as one of three Preeminent State Research Universities. Founded in 1956, USF is the fourth largest university in Florida by enrollment, ...
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Bachelor Of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years, depending on the country and institution. * Degree attainment typically takes five or more years in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru. * Degree attainment typically takes four years in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada (except Quebec), China, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United S ...
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Holland & Knight
Holland & Knight LLP is a multinational law firm with approximately 2,200 attorneys and professional staff worldwide. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, the firm has a number of different practices areas, including litigation, corporate law, real estate, construction law, and intellectual property. History Holland & Knight was formed in 1968 after the merger of the firms established by Spessard Holland and Peter O. Knight. Chesterfield Smith was the managing partner of the new venture until 1983. In 1997 the firm acquired Haight Gardner Poor & Haven, making them the 12th largest law firm at the time with 600 attorneys. That number had grown to 840 by 1998 following subsequent acquisitions. Holland & Knight merged with the Dallas-based, 275-attorney Thompson & Knight in 2021, retaining the name Holland & Knight. By 2022 it had become the 7th-largest US-based law firm with 1,596 attorneys. Political involvement According to OpenSecrets, Holland & Knight was one of the top law ...
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Law Firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise consumer, clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and Obligation, responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil case, civil or Criminal law, criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice and other assistance are sought. Arrangements Law firms are organized in a variety of ways, depending on the jurisdiction in which the firm practices. Common arrangements include: * Sole proprietorship, in which the attorney ''is'' the law firm and is responsible for all profit, loss and liability; * General partnership, in which all the attorneys who are members of the firm share ownership, profits and liabilities; * Professional corporations, which issue stock to the attorneys in a fashion similar to that of a business corporation; * Limited liability company, in which the attorney-ow ...
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Electronically Stored Information (Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure)
Electronically stored information (ESI), for the purpose of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) is information created, manipulated, communicated, stored, and best utilized in digital form, requiring the use of computer hardware and software.''Electronically Stored Information: The December 2006 Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure''
, Kenneth J. Withers, Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, Vol.4 (2), 171
ESI has become a legally defined phrase as the determined for the purposes of the FRCP rules of 2 ...
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Discovery (law)
Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a phase of pretrial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain Evidence (law), evidence from other parties. This is by means of methods of discovery such as interrogatories, Request for production, requests for production of documents, request for admissions, requests for admissions and Deposition (law), depositions. Discovery can be obtained from nonparties using subpoenas. When a discovery request is objected to, the requesting party may seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion to compel discovery. Conversely, a party or nonparty resisting discovery can seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion for a protective order. History Discovery evolved out of a unique feature of early Equity (law), equitable pleading procedure before the English Court of Chancery: among various requirements, a plaintiff's bill in equity was required to plead "positions". These we ...
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