SOUTHERN LEGAL COUNSEL AND CO-COUNSEL ARE FINALISTS FOR TRIAL LAWYER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Public Justice, a national nonprofit legal advocacy organization that takes on systemic threats to justice, has selected a team of Southern Legal Counsel and ACLU of Florida lawyers, together with pro bono attorney Andy Pozzuto, as finalists for the 2022 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for their work on McArdle v. Ocala.
The award celebrates and recognizes the accomplishments of an attorney or team of attorneys working on behalf of individuals and groups that have suffered grave injustice or abuse.
“We are so grateful for this recognition, said SLC Executive Director Jodi Siegel. “It demonstrates that the work we are doing is truly at the highest level of legal advocacy nationally. Other nominees are from some of the nation’s top private law firms, such as Hogan Lovells, as well as national organizations like the NAACP. It’s truly an honor to be in such company.”
In February 2021, three Ocala residents represented by SLC and co-counsel won their case challenging the city’s open lodging ordinance. The plaintiffs, Patrick McArdle, Courtney Ramsey and Anthony Cummings, had been repeatedly arrested under the ordinance for sleeping outside and experiencing homelessness.
U.S. District Court Judge James S. Moody ruled that the ordinance “unlawfully punishes an individual based on their homeless status” and that this cruel and unusual punishment was unconstitutional.
Additionally, the city had trespassed all three Plaintiffs from its public parks without providing them the ability to contest their trespass warnings.
The court enjoined the city from “arresting, citing, or otherwise enforcing the open lodging ordinance against someone identifying as homeless,” before inquiring about the availability of shelter space. As a result of the ruling, the City of Ocala can no longer arrest those experiencing homelessness under the ordinance without first looking into the availability of shelter space.
The other finalists for the award were the legal teams in Hawaiʻi v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., et al., In re Flint Water Cases, and McCollum et al. v. Robeson County et al.
“The four finalist teams for Public Justice’s 2022 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award include an incredible group of attorneys across the country, who took on landmark cases that address severe government abuse, pharmaceutical companies’ deceptive business practices, an unconstitutional city ordinance that targeted the homeless, and police corruption and abuse,” Public Justice said in its announcement.
The team in McArdle v. Ocala included Siegel, Kirsten Anderson, then SLC’s litigation director and now an attorney with Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.; SLC attorney Chelsea Dunn; Jacqueline Azis and Daniel Tilley of ACLU of Florida; and Pozzuto, whose firm is Alavi & Pozzuto in Ocala, Fla.
This year’s award will be presented at the organization’s 40th Annual Gala & Awards Presentation on Monday, July 18, 2022.