FAMILY/PROBATE

Robin Bresky and Jeremy Dicker

Law Offices of Robin Bresky

A client with the Law Offices of Robin Bresky was seeking a divorce in a case before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marcia Del Rey — until he learned the judge has a professional history with the opposing counsel.

Leinoff & Lemos managing partner Andrew M. Leinoff, the attorney for Omer Becker's wife, had been retained by Del Rey during her divorce several years before.

A day later, Becker filed for the judge's disqualification. Two weeks and a day later, the judge ruled the motion was legally insufficient. The Law Offices of Robin Bresky filed a petition with the Third District Court of Appeal, seeking the judge's removal based on a well-founded fear of bias.

The appellate court found reasonable people might consider his wife's counsel's representation of the judge would call into question the judge's impartiality. It was "incumbent upon the trial court to disclose a prior attorney-client relationship with an attorney," the opinion said.

in September, the panel granted Becker's petition but refrained from issuing the requested writ against Del Rey, saying it was "confident that the trial judge will disqualify herself from the proceedings."

Becker's case was transferred to Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Victoria del Pino.

Describe a key piece of testimony, evidence, ruling or order in your case and how it influenced the outcome: The facts alleged in a motion to disqualify must be taken as true. We believe that the key evidence that influenced the outcome here was the trial court's decision not to disclose on the record the prior attorney-client relationship that she had with the wife's attorney. Such disclosure would have certainly been relevant to the question of disqualification.

The Third District Court of Appeal held it is "incumbent upon the trial court to disclose a prior attorney-client relationship with an attorney. The trial judge's failure to disclose the prior attorney-client relationship with the wife's attorney created, in this case, objectively reasonable fears of bias and that the husband would not receive a fair and impartial proceeding."