IN CLOSING...
Elaine Johnson James is a partner in Berger Singerman’s Boca Raton, Florida offi ce. She spoke to Diversity & the Bar about her career.
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You represented a governmental entity in an action to validate $1.8 billion in bonds for restoring the Everglades. That is an amazing amount of money. Can you walk me through the process; how you got involved, what was at stake, why you took the case?
Two of my law partners structured a $1.8 billion bond program to fi nance the Everglades’ restoration for the South Florida Water Management District. Having worked for the district on a signifi - cant evident domain matter, I asked the general counsel to retain me to represent the district in validation proceedings. My public fi nance partners and I collaborated to ensure that
every word and punctuation mark in the resolutions to establish the bond program were consistent with the criteria for validating the bonds. Immediately after serving the validation complaint on my opponents, i.e., the state attorneys in every county under the district’s jurisdiction, I sent each state attorney a binder of informa- tion relative to the validation proceedings and an off er to provide any other information he or she might need to determine whether to
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
oppose or support validation. Two of the state attor- neys opposed the validation at trial, at the conclusion of which the court said it would rule within a week or two. Time was of the essence so I presented a pro- posed fi nal judgment. T e court reviewed it, and then identifi ed the sections that he thought the district had failed to prove. After I explained what evidence sup- ported each of the provisions about which the court was concerned, to the surprise of everyone in the courtroom, he said “Oh, I think I can sign this now.” As the judge signed the fi nal judgment, the executive director of the district emailed the U.S. president and the governor of Florida to say that the Everglades would be restored.
Your team of attorneys drafted a motion for rehearing, in only four days, that eventually reinstated 50 years of legal precedent in public fi nance law which the court had overturned. The Florida Supreme Court decision invalidated the tax fi nancing that was used to redevelop blighted areas. You argued the case. How were you so persuasive?
Our eff ort to persuade the Florida Supreme Court in Strand began long before the oral argument. Local counsel and fi ve lawyers from my fi rm col-
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