As a University of Miami law student, Jacqueline Marie Valdespino knew two things for certain about law: "I'm not going to practice criminal law, and I'm not going to do divorce work."
JACQUELINE MARIE VALDESPINO
Partner / Valdespino & Associates
MiamiEducation: Bachelor's, American studies, 1983, Georgetown University. 1987 graduate, University of Miami law school.Professionally: Board certified, family and matrimonial law. Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.Recreationally: Mountain biking, scrapbooks, skiing in the winter, Colorado in the summer.From her award acceptance speech: "I want to thank my husband, Al Del Risco. You are a constant reminder that no matter what I do, I have to do it with passion. It is because of that passion that I am here. When I come home late from meeting with one of my guardian ad litem children, I look into your eyes, and I know that there is good in the world.So, naturally, her first job out of school was handling criminal appeals as an assistant state attorney general. And now she does family law. She does something else: Lots of pro bono work. Valdespino has logged an average of 197 hours a year since 1995 advocating for children and teaching other lawyers how to do the same. In billable hour terms, that's more than $55,000 a year in salary given away.
In recognition of her sacrifice, the state Supreme Court in January gave Valdespino its highest honor, the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award. Valdespino, according to a published report, fought at the ceremony to hold back tears. Not so, she says. "I broke down in tears hysterically crying. There was no holding back about it. I was overwhelmed, and I continue to be overwhelmed."
Born in New York of Cuban immigrant parents, Valdespino was graduated from Georgetown University before studying law at the University of Miami. She works through the Put Something Back Project, a Miami pro bono effort that provides indigents with legal representation. She investigates and makes recommendations on behalf of children. One case she volunteered for spanned seven years and 23 court volumes.
In August, she will receive an ABA Pro Bono Publico honor for "outstanding free legal services to children in custody cases" for her 33 pro bono guardian ad litem assignments and nearly 2,000 hours of free work since founding her firm in 1992.
Valdespino, 42, doesn't regret divorce work now. People in a divorce can be "on their worst behavior, doing horrible things and very angry," she says. But "working with me, they learn to leave aside the anger and the negativity and ... move on. I think the most important thing is to be part of the solution and not part of the problem."
A Personal Touch
Talk to Virginia "Ginny" Dorris, chief executive of a Bradenton-based professional employer organization, and you get a homespun image of her company, Nelco Cos. For instance, Nelco, founded in 1983, is the oldest privately held "homegrown PEO" in Manatee County, she declares. Seemingly every employee is "fabulous" or "phenomenal." How's business? "I didn't have any money when I started this," she cracks. "I still don't."
VIRGINIA DORRIS
CEO / Nelco Cos.
BradentonAvocation: Show horses -- Saddlebred horses. Her daughter, Dori Rath, and two granddaughters ride competitively. Dorris has had an Arabian stallion that placed in the top 10 nationally, and granddaughter Castille rides a world champion five-gaited pony named Small Packages.Joking aside, the PEO industry is getting over rotten times. Plenty of clients needed someone to do payroll, handle benefits, workers' comp and compliance duties. But rising workers' comp costs and PEOs that chased volume led to scores of PEO failures. It's left openings for small, hands-on operators like Dorris, who's acquired six competitors in the last two years.
A St. Louis native and an accountant, Dorris founded Nelco to provide services to accounting clients. She credits intensive follow-up with injured workers by her in-house adjusters with keeping her loss rate low. She's also picky about whom she will underwrite.
She's innovative with technology. For instance, she offers a PDA with a custom safety program for performing workplace safety checks that are time dated and stamped.
Nelco is small. It has 12,000 co-employees and last year had $37.2 million in adjusted revenue. For comparison, its PEO neighbor in Bradenton, Gevity, has 100,000 co-employees and $375 million in annual adjusted revenue.
"It's not for every Tom, Dick and Harry," Dorris says of her company. "If they're looking for cheap workers' comp, they don't need to look to us. If they want good service, they look to us."
Fast Forward
KELLY OVERSTREET JOHNSON
President-elect / Florida Bar
TallahasseePersonal: The mother of twin daughters, Alexis "Alex" and Haley, Johnson has been married for 23 years to Florida Police Benevolent Association general counsel Hal Johnson.Tallahassee born and raised, Kelly Overstreet Johnson has been on the fast track for a while. She finished high school in three years, worked as a legal secretary in college and started attending Bar functions while still in law school at FSU. She takes over next year as president of the Florida Bar.
Johnson, 45, wants a re-examination of lawyer advertising rules and also wants to undo changes that gave the governor greater power in naming the members of the judicial nominating commissions that recommend people for judgeships.
A partner with Broad and Cassel, she practices commercial litigation, class actions and labor law. A notable win was a $26.2-million settlement for blind vendors at state-owned buildings in a case about retirement account contributions. "A wonderful experience for me," she says. "The clients were great, and they were really being taken advantage of."
Doing a Number on Swindlers
You don't usually think of accountants going on raids -- Freeze! We have calculators, and we're not afraid to use them! -- but for Maria Yip, it's becoming the usual thing.
MARIA YIP
Director, forensic accounting / Grant Thornton
MiamiQuote:??"I can't imagine doing anything else as a career."Ancestry:??Cuban and Chinese. And she was born in Madrid.Interests:??Gourmet cooking, wines and stamp collecting.Director of forensic accounting for Grant Thornton in Miami, Yip follows the money around the country and Latin America tracing diverted funds and embezzlement, estimating damages and shutting down boiler rooms.
As a young CPA at Price Waterhouse in 1993, Yip was pulled from audit work to fill a temporary gap in a team that did accounting work for court cases. She's grateful she was. Yip, 38, says the mix of detective work, writing, accounting, interacting with attorneys and interviewing people suits her. As do raids. "It gets the adrenaline going."