Richard Coaxum, Jr.

AREAS OF CONCENTRATION

• Commercial Contracts and Business Law
• Local Government Law
• Procurement
• Land Use
• Complex Commercial Litigation

EXPERIENCE

Richard Coaxum, Jr., is a partner at Saxon Gilmore, and is a resident of the firm’s newly opened Orlando office. He concentrates his practice in commercial contracts, business law, local government law, land use, and complex commercial litigation. Mr. Coaxum has practiced law for 13 years and brings to the firm considerable experience in the public sector. Most recently, he spent over nine years serving the Central Florida community with the Orange County Attorney's Office as a senior member of the Litigation Section. He has served as lead counsel in a number of high profile and politically sensitive matters and achieved a number of successful outcomes. These representations included work as Orange County’s chief counsel in its contract matters; successful defense of the County, including its Convention Center, in several multi-million dollar lawsuits for injunctive relief and damages for alleged arbitrary and capricious conduct involving bid awards; eminent domain proceedings, including orders of taking hearings, litigation, and mediation; land use, and zoning matters, including challenges to its Comprehensive Plan; and environmental law matters, involving Class I wetland impact violations.  For a number of years, Mr. Coaxum handled Orange County’s labor and employment disputes and was lead trial counsel in several binding arbitration proceedings for employee grievances for suspensions, demotions, and terminations. Mr. Coaxum received his A.B. degree from Harvard University with Cum Laude recommendation in 1991, where he was enrolled in the Government Honors Program. During his senior year at Harvard, he authored a Cum Laude thesis on the dynamics of ethnic politics and the inherent challenges to a pluralist political system in Miami-Dade County. Mr. Coaxum served as a Judicial Intern for the Honorable Ursula Ungara-Benages, United States District Court, Southern District of Florida in 1993. He received his J.D. degree from the University of Florida College of Law in 1995, where he was a Virgil Hawkins Fellowship recipient, named to the Dean’s List, and a member of Phi Alpha Delta Legal Fraternity.  Mr. Coaxum was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1995, and is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts of Florida and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. 

PROFESSIONAL, TRADE AND CIVIC ACTIVITY

• The Florida Bar (City, State and Local Government Section)
• Orange County Bar Association
• Harvard Club of Central Florida; Schools Committee
• Boy Scouts of America; Executive Board, Central Florida Council
• Florida Association of County Attorneys
• Legal Aid Society; Homeless Advocacy Project
• Paul C. Perkins Bar Association

STATE/COURT ADMISSIONS

• Florida (all state courts)
• U.S. District Court (Middle District of Florida)
• Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

EDUCATION

• University of Florida (J.D., Dean’s List 1995; Virgil Hawkins Fellowship Recipient)
• Harvard University (A.B., Dean’s List, 1991)