HARVARD ON YOUR SIDE
IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
Now in his fourth consecutive year listed in
Florida Super Lawyers®, Barry Chase of
ChaseLawyersSM brings Harvard Law School
representation to the South Florida
entertainment industry. Along with associate
attorney LaShawn Thomas, ChaseLawyersSM
represents recording artists, performers, record
companies, television and film producers,
composers, actors and actresses, models,
athletes, authors and Internet entrepreneurs.
Your entertainment lawyer should match your ambitions.SM
Barry Chase
Photo: Dirk Franke
La Sha wn Thomas Photo: Dirk Franke
21 SE 1st Ave., Suite 700, Miami, FL 33131 USA
In The Heart of Miami
(305) 373-7665 • LOBOC@aol.com
www.LawHarvard.com
the law. Bass and Scherker’s strategy was,
comparatively, deceptively simple: Bass’
job was to create an accurate, watertight
trial record that, if successful, Scherker
could then uphold on appeal.
“Hilarie gave me a nice present wrapped
up to take to the 3rd District Court of
Appeal,” Scherker says.
They went to court in October 2008,
where Bass had two goals: first, force the
DCF to admit that the children were in a
good situation and it was in their best interest
to leave them there. Secondly, undermine the
credibility of the state’s witnesses.
Then-State Attorney General Bill
McCollum put forward only two experts.
Both said homosexuals were mentally
unstable and could not be good parents.
On cross-examination, Bass got one of
them to agree that Gill and his partner were
good parents, and that adoptions should be
decided on a case-by-case basis. The other
expert based his opinions on religious belief.
The judge sided with Gill and the boys.
The state almost immediately appealed.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, in
an office across the street from the
courthouse, Rubin was keeping an eye on
developments. The state bar’s Family Law
Section, which he headed, wanted to see
the law overturned and had previously
looked at legislative remedies, but had
been blocked by the bar’s board of
governors. Sections of the bar need the
board’s approval before they can lobby
lawmakers in Tallahassee—and if the issue
is deemed divisive, the board often says no.
The issue for Rubin, who has belonged
to the bar’s Family Law Section since he
graduated from law school in the 1980s,
was helping those hurt most by the
adoption ban—the children awaiting a
permanent home.
“For the thousands of kids in foster care,
overturning the ban is a way out of foster
care and into a family,” says the tall, soft-
spoken lawyer. “It broadens the pool of
potential adoptive parents.”
Though the three-person office of Fogel
Rubin & Fogel has also handled products
liability and personal injury cases, family
law makes up 98 percent of his practice.
“[Family law] is an area of the law where
attorneys can really make a difference for
their clients and their children,” he says.
“One lawyer can literally change the law.”
With the Gill case in the courts, Rubin
