Judge Paul Hawkes – History of a Novel Approach to Deliver Better Service – Part 2

It was necessary for Judge Paul Hawkes to lobby the Governor’s office and then to lobby the Florida Legislature on the benefits of the proposal. Judge Paul Hawkes’ lobbying efforts were successful and the First DCA received almost a million dollar appropriation from the Workers’ Compensation Administrative Trust Fund. Critical in obtaining approval for the appropriation was the creation of a new approach to process workers’ compensation cases. Judge Paul Hawkes lead the effort on the First DCA in creating a new unit, dedicated to workers’ compensation, staffed by experienced workers’ compensation lawyers. It was this new approach Judge Paul Hawkes advocated that convinced the Legislature in appropriating the additional resources. 

Not only did the First DCA get additional resources, it created a new approach to handling a significant volume of complex appeals. This new approach the Judge Paul Hawkes and the First implemented -a dedicated unit, experienced attorneys working together to prepare the cases for the panel that would decide the case – provided several benefits.

·         The cases could be decided quickly. Judge Paul Hawkes was amazed at how much faster the court could dispose of a workers’ compensation appeal. On average the court was saving over 100 days of processing time.

·         The court could do more pre-screening to bundle appeals raising similar or identical issues to be decided by the same panel. Judge Paul Hawkes was amazed after joining the court with how it seemed that a question needing to be resolved by the DCA would be brought in several different appeals and would involve several JCCs. By deciding these appeals by the same panel, the court operated more efficiently and consistent.

·         While serving as Chief Judge, Paul Hawkes, based on the suggestion of another judge on the court, authorized the unit to begin to use the prescreening process to identify cases that would be appropriate for summary disposition under the Rules of Appellate Procedure. This allowed the court to save thousands of dollars for litigants in appeal cost. Judge Paul Hawkes is not aware of any other instance where this Rule has been used, especially in a consistent fashion.

Judge Paul Hawkes was extremely pleased in how this novel approach to handling complex cases on appeal benefited the court and litigants. While still on the court, Judge Paul Hawkes advocated that the approach be duplicated in other types of complex cases where a court has sufficient volume, i.e. criminal cases.