Marko & Magolnick News

Neal R. Sonnett, Of Counsel to de la O, Marko, Magolnick & Leyton, has been selected by the Florida Bar to receive the Selig I. Goldin Memorial Award.  Mr. Sonnett was nominated by dMML managing partner, Miguel M. de la O. 

From the Florida Bar News:

June 15, 2006

Sonnett wins Goldin Award
Miami lawyer Neal Sonnett’s 38-year career is packed with pubic service in working to improve the criminal justice system on local, state, and national levels.

From serving on a panel to improve community confidence in the criminal justice system after Miami’s “McDuffie Riots” in 1980 to chairing the 2002-04 ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants and named the ABA’s official Observer for the Military Commission trials in Guantanamo, Sonnett is a nationally recognized trial lawyer with a social conscience.

On Friday, June 23, during the The Florida Bar’s Annual Convention in Boca Raton, the Criminal Law Section will honor Sonnett with the Selig I. Goldin Memorial Award at the section’s noon to 2 p.m. luncheon.

“Neal’s efforts in fighting against abuses in the criminal justice system have gone far beyond simply bar association and congressional activity,” Miguel de la O wrote in his seven-page nomination letter detailing his former law partner’s impressive career.

“He has represented pro bono, dozens of lawyers who have received grand jury or trial subpoenas, have been threatened with restraining orders or forfeiture of legitimate fees, or have been threatened with contempt orders. Neal has also appeared as amicus curiae in a variety of important criminal justice cases in both federal district and circuit courts throughout the United States, and in the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Caplin & Drysdale and United States v. Monsanto, the attorney fee forfeiture case.”

Sonnett has taught advanced federal criminal practice as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law, lectured at major CLE seminars across the country, and given keynote speeches at state bar associations and judicial conferences.

“As his resume demonstrates, he has been a leader in community, civic, and charitable causes,” de la O continued. “One wonders how Neal maintains an active law practice while still devoting so much of his time to professional and pro bono activities, but he also maintains a national reputation as a top-notch criminal law lawyer.”

The keynote speaker at the Selig I. Goldin Memorial Award Luncheon is Mark Curriden, a lawyer, award-winning author, and national legal writer for The Dallas Morning News.

His 2000 book, Contempt of Court: A Turn-of-the-Century Lynching That Launched 100 Years of Federalism, delves into a case that, despite being buried and long-forgotten in legal history, played a significant role in the development of the law in the United States. It focuses on the case of Ed Johnson, a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Two African-American lawyers heroically appeal his conviction and death sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Johnson was lynched in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

© 2005 The Florida Bar